Published: January 11, 2026 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 81 | Scripture: Romans 14:1-8
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14. We continue
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chapter which provide a a summary of the entire chapter. I think that it's very easy to uh to lose the forest for the trees in a passage like this to look too closely at
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the specific examples that Paul is using and try to figure out as I mentioned last week who are the weak and who who are the strong and what was this issue about meat and did he mean the Sabbath
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and and fail to see Paul's point and I think it was clearly providential that Ariel read from 1 Corinthians 9 because Christian liberty is exactly
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what Paul is talking about. And so we'll be looking again at the first eight verses and um I'm going to read those that section and I'd like to ask John if you would pray for the ministry of the
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word this morning. Romans chapter 14 beginning in verse one. Now ex accept the one who is weak in faith but not for the purpose of passing
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judgment on his opinions. One man has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. Let not him who eats regard with contempt
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the one who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats. For God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of
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another? To his own master he stands or falls, and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man regards one day above another, another
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regards every day alike. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it for the Lord. And he who eats does so for the
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Lord. For he gives thanks to God and and he who does not, excuse me, and he who eats not for the Lord he does not eat and gives thanks to God. For not one
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of us lives for himself, and not one of us dies for himself. For if we live, we live for the Lord. Or if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live
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or die, we are the Lord's. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for our being here. I pray that our hearts would be good
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soil for the word to take where we can grow, that it would stay with us through the week. the week. Pray that you would bless
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scripture in Jesus name. I want to step back a moment and and look at what what Paul is saying here um
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in a a kind of a qualitative sense. He's referring to some of the members of the church at Rome as weak.
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The Greek word literally means without strength. And we read that and and I think again we're we're drawn to examples in our own
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Christian experience perhaps or or what we've read about the the culture of of the early church and we immediately try to identify who the weak must have been.
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But what I want to ask is is this a compliment? Has there ever been a culture in human society where it was a compliment to call someone weak?
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Is it an honor? Is it a situation that ought to continue? Or very briefly, is it okay? And I think we all know the answer, no.
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Paul's use of weak and strong are themselves indicative of his view of the congregation of Jesus Christ. each
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congregation and his view his use of those terms are are are is is such that I don't think we can come away thinking that it's okay that the weak remain weak
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that that he's not saying it's okay that they be weak in faith and I think we're going to see this as we go through chapter 14 and also as we reference much of what he says in 1 and
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2 Corinthians 2 Corinthians and that is to remain remain weak is to fail to live and to grow in the liberty that we have in Christ.
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It is to negate what Jesus himself said when he said, "If the son sets you free, you shall be free indeed." So even though he does not castigate the
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weak, nonetheless, what he is saying here is indeed a compassionate admonition. But he is also speaking to those who
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have the strength of faith to do what others are not able to do. The others conscience would not allow them to do to eat or to ignore a day or
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to observe a day or to drink. And he says also echoing what Jesus said that the Gentiles who rule lorded over their subjects, but it shall not be that
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way with you. So, as I mentioned last week, he really doesn't get down into the weeds as far as whether or not they're right in observing or not observing. I think
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that's implied by the use of the terms weak and strong. I think our understanding of those two words tells us that I it's okay to do
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this or to do that. So the point is not whether it's okay to eat or observe a day or not observe a day or not drink. That's not really the point. And and the
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the good thing about that statement is that if we don't get hung up on the on the minutia of what was going on in Rome in the first century, we have a better chance of applying what
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the Holy Spirit is teaching to our church in the 21st century because much of what they were struggling with in terms of food sacrificed to idols
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or kosher laws or Sabbath days or pagan holidays with which everyone in the congregations of of Christianity in the first century in
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the medit Mediterranean world had something some baggage some stigma attached to food and drink and days. Now
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we t again we tend to think that's the Jews that they had the Sabbath and they had the kosher laws and the dietary restrictions. No, so did the Gentiles and they came into the church with that
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baggage as well. That's really the focus of Paul's letter to the Corinthians. These were not Jewish believers who were struggling with the the idea of food sacrificed to idols. All that the Jews
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had in their scriptures taught them that idols were nothing. That there was only one God. And actually that's what Paul says in first Corinthians that we know that there is one God and one Lord.
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There are no such things really as idols. And so it were they were the Gentiles who were struggling. So as we read this, we realize this is not just the Gentiles. This is not just the Jews.
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And in fact, some of the Jews may be weak and strong in other areas the same as the Gentiles. That's not really the point. And I think that Paul uses these terms
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weak and strong shows that his approach is is an aversion to the status quo.
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And that's really where where I want to take these sessions as we talk about Rome and try to see the dynamics that were going on in the Roman congregation
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that Paul is speaking to. And again, seeing that the weak, though they may be weak, should not remain weak. The strong, though they they be strong, should not oppress or even force
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the weak into their way of living with Christian liberty. Christian liberty. At no point does Paul indicate that the strong should become weak.
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But I think it is again implied that the weak should eventually become strong. Status quo or stagnation is deadly to any congregation of
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believers. There's a phrase from the reformation in the Latin. It is ecclesia reform sea reformanda. The reformed church is always reforming.
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Now, some churches have taken that statement and said that a a church is always changing, that we should be constantly changing things. Or others have said, "No, we we need to remain
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culturally relevant. We need to constantly be looking at what's going on in our world and changing our liturgy and changing our teaching in order to be uh more accommodating to the world."
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That's not what that means. What it means is that we all see as in a mirror dimly. We have not yet attained perfect understanding, nor will we in this life.
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And and therefore, we should always in every generation be critically searching the scriptures as to what we do and what brings pleasure and the approbation of
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God. So when it says a reformed church is always reforming, always reforming, it means it's not stagnating. It's not staying in one place. And actually if we look at this passage
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and we don't understand it again in my opinion properly then we're liable to take the position of the weak as the least or the lowest common
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denominator. In other words we we look around and we say okay what can we do not to offend anybody? And so we all go to the lowest common denominator. And that's what many
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churches have done. and you go in there and there's there's nothing said about sin. There's nothing said about blood. I remember years ago a local church had determined to take out of their liturgy
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all hymns that referred to the blood of Christ because blood is offensive to 21st century that might have been 20th century at the time. Blood is offensive
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to to people's sensibilities. They they don't want to hear that sort of thing. Now I think we understand that that that's not good. Nonetheless, it is common for any congregation in in its
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searching of the scriptures and it's digging into the wisdom of God revealed there as it applies not only to our individual lives but our corporate life, our worship, we reach a plateau
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and we stay there. We don't keep pushing. The problem is when you reach that plateau, that's as high as you go in experiencing
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the liberty that we have in Jesus Christ. And Paul would say, and I think certainly the Lord behind him would would would amen, don't stop. Don't stop at any point in your study of
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scripture and you're seeking out the fullness of the liberty that we have in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Paul takes us to the end really in this passage where he says all things are
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sanctified through prayer and thanksgiving. He says in the passage that I've read that that if if a person gives thank for it, it it is sanctified. He does it for the Lord because he is
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thankful. And so it's very hard for me to read this passage and others from Paul and come up with basically anything that isn't okay except of course sin.
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And so again I want to offer the caveat that there are two things Paul is not talking about. First thing he's not talking about sin. Sin is not adapora a matter indifferent.
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It is unacceptable. And so we go to John and when we sin, we confess our sins and we trust in the blood of Jesus Christ to wash us from those sins. We don't tolerate it.
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We seek to overcome it through the power of the Holy Spirit, but we don't separate between those who are weak and sin and those who are strong and don't sin. That's not what he's talking about
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here. And so that's the the the the first principle. The second is these are all believers. These are all born again. They are children of the king.
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Their allegiance is to Jesus Christ as their Messiah and Lord. When he says weak in faith, he doesn't mean unbelieving. He's not talking about unbelieving Gentiles or unbelieving Jews. He speaks
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of them elsewhere here. He's talking about believers. about believers. And as I believe, he is talking about them within the context of the congregation, which frankly is just
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about all that Paul ever talks about. And and so we have to look at this as Paul does in our in our own congregation. We're always reforming,
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always critically analyzing what we teach and what we do and what we pray and all of those things against the scripture and against the liberty that we have in
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Jesus Christ Jesus Christ and we do not want to ever plateau. Now I have a very strange uh affliction
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uh affliction and that is that I actually believe that the congregation of Jesus Christ in any building that wherever it may be can largely attain what Paul is laying
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out before us today in this passage. I believe that by the power of the Holy Spirit, this can be done. that we can actually have within us, within our congregation, those who are weak, those
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who struggle with the liberty that we have in Jesus Christ, those who are strong and are confident in that liberty in a manner in which the one does not judge the other and the other does not
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oppress the one, but rather that we nourish one another so that the weak may grow stronger and so may also the wrong.
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As Paul says in Philippians, I I've not yet attained perfection, but this I do. I press on to the upward call of glory in Jesus Christ.
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So, this is a dynamic process. It's not a static process at all. It It's an everpresent challenge to every
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congregation. It's a challenge to the elders of the congregation. If the elders plateau, how can the church rise any higher?
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If the teaching ever reaches a level and progresses no deeper, no further, how can the congregation progress any deeper or any further? Well, you say they can do it on their own. Well, that is true.
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It is absolutely true. But a sense of bitterness, a sense of desperation will set in when the congregation attains a level of
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understanding higher than its leadership. That's not a good place to be in any organization, frankly. Not to refer to the church as an organization, but the dynamic still applies. So, it's
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a challenge to the church, but it's also an opportunity for discord. It is a temptation. Do you remember years ago, I can't remember which um which president it it might have been George W. Bush,
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but there was a a motto or a mantra for the education system, no child left behind. Remember that? Yeah. I maybe it was about the bus drivers. I don't know.
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Um I think we can apply that to Paul's teaching recur regarding the growth in grace of believers in the church. There's no brother or sister left behind. Ariel read from 1 Corinthians 9 that when you when you run a race, when
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a runner runs a race in the in the ancient Olympics, they ran to win. And then Paul tells everyone, "Run in such a way that you win." And I have a note in my Bible. It's a it's a reflection of
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Jonathan Edwards. And that is we all win. We all cross the line. That's really what Paul is saying is not so much be like the runners but rather
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be unlike the runners because in a race only one wins. Paul's saying here and there no run in such a way that you all win. Run in such a way that as the
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writer of Hebrews says that there is no leg that goes lame, no arm that is weak, no one who falls short of that finish line. Now again I am not saying that we work out and earn our salvation. Don't
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misunderstand me. What I am saying is that as we look upon one another, we are our brother's keeper. We are our sister's keeper. And if we do by God's
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grace understand some of what the liberty that we have in Jesus Christ means, it's our responsibility to help others understand that too. That they might live in clear conscience in the
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freedom of Jesus Christ. Not to browbeat, not to force. And we're going to get into that as we get into this chapter because anything that is done apart from
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faith, Paul says, is sin. So, nobody should ever do anything with a with an unclear conscience. And those who are free to do it should
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never force another. Should never move them beyond the level of their faith. But neither should they leave them at that level.
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that we might progress from glory to glory, from grace to grace, from freedom to freedom to freedom. For where the spirit of the Lord is,
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there is liberty. And that is the congregation of Jesus Christ. Now I want to talk about the context
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because it it may not it might it's not obvious in what Paul writes either here or in Corinthians but during that time there was a a rising um teaching or or
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practice known asnosticism and this is present in every religion in history and that is within that religion there there's an elite there are those
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who have been enlightened there are those uh who who have reached 32nd degree in the Masons or or whatever. They have they have learned the deep truths, the deeper magic,
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and they become an elite, the strong, we might call them. And those who have not attained that greater knowledge are the the common. And and actually the word
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that Paul uses is also used in the Old Testament to refer that which is common versus that which is holy. And and sonosticism is behind this whole
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thing. And Paul is saying that that such um attitudes that some of us are superch Christians. Again, that was a problem in
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Corinth that we can read about in the first letter that some are superch Christians. Some have have been recognized as having more spirit, more spiritual gifts. Paul says, "No, you you
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you can't think that way." And it may be that he's actually using the terms weak and strong somewhat sarcastically
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Paul does that. You know, he he may be using terms that are being used in the congregation itself, congregation itself, but it's not they're not being used the way Paul is using them in the congregation. And there there's this temptation to use them in a judging
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manner and and in a manner of separating, not unifying by separating the congregation between those who have and those who have not
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the depths of the spirit or of that special knowledge, that nosticism. Paul says, "No, there are weak. There are those who whose conscience will not allow them to do certain things. There
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are those whose conscience is clear in the Lord. Do not judge one another because the ultimate purpose of what he's saying is the unity and the harmony of the church but not through
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uniformity. Again, he's not looking for everyone to do the same thing. We may ask ourselves the question if we think about this term weak. Are there
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any weak in Christ? Is that not really kind of a contradiction of terms? I think Paul says in verse four exactly what I'm saying. He says, "Do do not
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judge the servant of another master, for to their master they will stand or fall." And then he says, "And stand they
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will." See, they're not as weak as you think they are. they are. And stand they will, for the Lord is able to make them stand. So I do take it that Paul is using the
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terms a little bit um sarcastically, a little bit facitiously. What we have here then in Paul's Paul's vision for the church is that there
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would be unity and harmony with growth in grace. That's a tough one.
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There can be unity and harmony with stagnation. There can be unity in uniformity that everybody in a congregation looks and talks the same way and that the teaching
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is the same from generation to generation and never varies. The hymns that we sing are the same every Sunday to Sunday. And there's unity and harmony
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only through that false security of convincing ourselves that he we have attained perfection. we have reached the high plateau of glory and we can just
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stay here now. That's not what Paul is looking for. He's looking for us to to progress from glory to glory, from grace to grace and at all times maintaining
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unity and harmony within the body. That is a tremendous challenge. tremendous challenge. But it's the same challenge today as it
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was 2,000 years ago. Just because the cultural situations have changed doesn't mean the admonition to unity and harmony with growth or growth in grace with unity and harmony.
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This is the mind of Christ. This is the the thesis of every letter Paul writes that we can grow that we can be
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constantly reforming that we can be critically looking at what we do and what we say and what we teach against the only standard of truth that is God's word and that we can improve
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together. Not all at the same pace, but all moving toward the same goal as servants of one Lord.
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So that's the challenge. As each believer grows in his or her understanding of Christian liberty and his appropriation of that freedom, no
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other believer should be left behind. No other believer should be by one person's growth made light of or even suppressed
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in their growth. The two most common emotions that are used in man-made religion are guilt
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and fear. And perhaps you have been in congregations where the pulpit is an instrument of guilt or an instrument of fear. Certainly when religion is
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parodyied, Christianity is parodyied in movies or in novels. These are the kind of sermons the the fire and brimstone or or we we used to joke about that that
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female pastor Helen Brimstone. You've heard of her.
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Guilt and fear are the instruments sadly within the church and the motivation of the weak because there is no guilt nor fear in
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Christ. But we're taught we're taught that in order for the church to remain holy and to remain pure, it must not do. It must not do. It
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must not do the these things that we cannot do. Otherwise, the Lord will be angry. Otherwise, you will defile your soul. So, you have fear and you have
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guilt. But you don't find those prescriptions in scripture. in scripture. And Paul actually defends. He said, "Why should I be condemned for something my conscience justifies?
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conscience justifies? Why should I be condemned for something for which I give thanks?" Again, he is not talking about sin. He's talking about food and drink and days. He's talking about those religious activities
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that are the the the instruments of fear and guilt in all man-made religion. Why should you have to pull your collar up if you're going into a grocery store
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that sells alcohol? Like, you're going to stand in the alcohol section and get blitzed. You're just going in for a bag of tomatoes. Come on. you know, why should you not be able to go to certain
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restaurants? Why why should you not be able to read certain literature? certain literature? Why should you not be able to to look at days as all the same or some days as special?
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Paul says, "Let every man," and please understand he means women as well. Let every believer what? Be convinced in his own mind. Be convinced in his own mind.
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In other words, let every man, let every woman's conscience be clear. But what is it that we use to convince ourselves? The traditions that we grew up in,
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the pronouncements from the pulpit that we hear Sunday after Sunday, what others might think of us, what do we use to convince ourselves?
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See, he leaves that unsaid. But but he says it pretty powerfully in Romans chapter 12 where he sayso not be conformed to the world but rather be transformed by the renewing of your
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mind. I mentioned last week that the conscience can be seared. Conscience can be defiled but conscience can also be grown. It can mature. And that which our conscience once did
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not allow, not allow, we can then enter into with full confidence and freedom when we see that it has been sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ.
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Jesus Christ. So what is it that guides your conscience? What is it that tells your your internal judge? Conscience literally in the Latin
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it means self-nowledge or with knowledge. It's it's your own little uh judge, not the not the good angel and the bad angel, but within you, it's your
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own analysis of the rightness or wrongness of a particular thought or action. That's what conscience is. It can be seared to where you don't even
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listen to it anymore. It's mute. It can be defiled to where what it does tell you is false. But I think we make the greater mistake when we consider
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conscience as thinking that it can never change. And we also in the church use it as a
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weapon. You can't do that because it violates my conscience. And we'll speak to that as we move through Romans 14. So what do we do with what Paul is
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teaching us here? First of all, we understand the weak are not necessarily ignorant of Christian doctrine, but they struggle to work out
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its consequences and implications. So the typical attitude,
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the attitude of freedom after generations of bondage. And I think that's what we need to to look at here. And I'm going to end with this thought, but consider those who have
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been in bondage for generations in in our own country. Consider the period of reconstruction when an an entire African-American
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population once under child slavery are now told, "You are legally free. Live as free men." Like they know how to do
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that. In our more current situation, we tend to think that that democracy is such a wonderful thing that it should be exported to all these different nations. In fact, maybe even with some army
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behind it to put it in place as if these people know what to do with democracy. Many of us remember when the Berlin Wall fell, when the Soviet Union collapsed,
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never having thought that that would happen, all of a sudden they're gone. And everybody had such optimism about what Russia would be like because you know the Russians have such a long
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history of of self-government. No, no, no. We have peoples on this planet who have no history other than
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dictatorships and all of a sudden they're free like they know what to do. Well, think of that now as those who have been generation after generation, conceived in iniquity, born in the bondage of sin,
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and now the Lord says, "You are free. The Son has set you free." Do we automatically know what to do with that? No. But what we don't do with it, and
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this is clearly Paul, especially to the Galatians, we don't go back to bondage. That's what he's teaching through all this. We don't go back to bondage. We
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move forward and it may be steps that at first scare us but we keep moving forward as free men. Peter says that live as free men but do not let your
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freedom be a cloak for lentiousness. We recognize as Peter is basically echoing Paul that whatever is not from faith is not from God. If we are not fully convinced
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in our minds that something is acceptable to God, we ought not do it. But we ought not stay there either. If we determine that what is being done
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is in fact sin, well then there's a whole different section of scripture by which we deal with that within the body. But if it's just tradition or fear or
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guilt, we need to take those things into serious consideration because there is therefore now no condemnation and all things are sanctified through prayer and thanksgiving. There is nothing that our
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father denies us. There is no food. There is no drink. There is no day. There is nothing that our father denies us in Jesus Christ.
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Now he who freely gave his life will he not freely give us all things. And what he requires of us is not sacrifice is not ritual but simply thanksgiving.
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And and so there are those who stumble today. They stumble over those who have wealth and others who stumble over those who are poor. Well, clearly you you don't have enough faith. You know, I've
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heard that over the years. And we we look at one another and where each other may be in this concept of Christian liberty and we judge
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and we look down upon and we condemn and we suppress and we envy and we condemn those who have more faith or more strength than we do. Well,
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what is the common denominator? Well, Paul says we are all the Lords. See? See, this is not, as I mentioned last week, this is not every man does
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what is right in his own eyes. That's where you could take this. That you can't tell me not to do it because I'm free or you can't make me do it because it violates my conscience and it's all about me. Well, that's not about Paul.
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That's not what he's saying here. So, it's not every man doing what is right in his own eyes. It it is not the case that because every individual serves the
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same Lord that we may each act and do as we please. we please. We accept one another on this basis that there is one Lord. And keep in mind that
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in that same passage where he says accept one another for God has accepted him. That's the same word. It's actually intensified. It means welcome into your home and sit at your table. It doesn't
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mean tolerate. mean tolerate. It means love as a brother or a sister. It means to accept one another in the same manner in which God has accepted
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you. We accept on the basis of the fact that we have one Lord. But our living and dying for one Lord is manifested by our living and dying for
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one another. one another. Jonathan Edwards again said that God accepts our devotion, our compassion, our benevolence as we display it toward
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one another. one another. That is the sacrifice we make that is acceptable to God. We do it for one another. And so as we consider the weak and the
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strong, we must not let our mind get into this thinking that they're factions. that it's the weak versus the strong. It's the weak and the strong together
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growing stronger that the weak may become strong and the strong even more so. Have this attitude which was in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus.
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What attitude was that? Well, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit.
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Regard one another as more important than yourself. than yourself. Do not look out for your own interests, but rather the interests of others. That's Philippians 2:es 3-5
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all jumbled up. And in my Bible, the third one that I mentioned has the the word merely in italics.
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in italics. The publisher has added that word so that it says do not merely look out for your own interests. Paul didn't use that word there. There
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is in fact a Greek word that would limit to just merely not looking out for one another. That's not or yourself. That's not what Paul says. Now, I don't really know that any of us can can fully do
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what Paul is asking us to do here. But one thing we can do is to guard against selfishness within
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our own attitudes, our own opinions, our own desires. And and that means all of us, including the elders,
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the elders, that we all have things that we think should be done in a certain way, and we feel better if they're done that way. But when we read Paul, we realize that's
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not what it's about. It's about our growing together. Ephesians 4 with every joint and ligament supplying that which the spirit has given it to supply that
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we all grow up into one man into the head which is Christ. That we do all things in love and all things seeking peace. So Paul closes this thought out
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here in chapter 14 verse 19. He says though, so then let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Let us pray.
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Father, we do ask that your spirit would open up these words to our hearts and to our minds. Help us to be critical, biblically critical of what we think and
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what we do, both individually and as a body. Help us to always be reforming, not always changing, not always trying to to to brighten things up, not trying
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to appeal, but rather to be obedient and rather to grow in our understanding of our liberty in Jesus Christ. But Father, through all these things, I
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do pray do pray that we would grow in unity and harmony. And as Paul admonishes the Thessalonians that our love for one another might
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abound still more. For we have one Lord. We live for one Lord. We die for one Lord. We are all
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together the Lord's. the Lord's. And so we desire to live in such a way as to give glory to our Lord. And we ask that you would continue the work that
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you have begun in us, not only individually, but as a body and in all of the congregations of Jesus Christ throughout the world, that they might be bound together by the Holy Spirit of
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love. That they might grow in grace and peace for your glory and for all our good. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.
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will please rise for the benediction from second Peter. More of an admonition where Peter writes, "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To
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him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.