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Morning Message Text: Romans 14: 1-12
The Weak and the Strong
1 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.
2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.
3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them.
4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.
6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.
7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone.
8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister ? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.
11 It is written: “ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’ ”
12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
Morning Message:
Have you noticed that in today’s culture the lines between right and wrong have been blurred? Maybe, saying they are blurred is a gross understatement. As a nation we are divided on things today that ten years ago there would have been agreement on. There are many things that Christians are called to be tolerant of, but at the same time, God’s laws have not changed or been replaced by more lenient standards.
Let’s think about God’s laws and what they would look like if they were written by someone living today. “You shall have no other God’s before me.” That should be an easy one. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except by me.” Yet we live in a nation where many, even some who proclaim to be Christians, say things like, “There are many ways to get to God, Jesus is just one way.” Here is how this gets blurred and causes confusion.
We have people who become famous. They are well known for their good works. We hear stories about them, how kind and giving, how much they did for others, they never had a bad word to say about anyone. They are portrayed as wonderful human beings and called Christian by many. Dolly Parton just passed away recently. She was well known for her music and for her giving. Someone said, “How wonderful it was that she never took sides on issues of politics or religion.” and she lived a life never causing waves, but if you look at some of her statements you realize that she never stood up for Christ. She proclaimed that there were many paths to God, so she never offended anyone.
How about this one, “You shall not steal.” We all know this; we all know that we should not take things that don’t belong to us. We learn this at a young age and it becomes the way that we live our lives. When I was 3 or 4 years old my mom and my aunt took me with them to the five and dime store in Connellsville. After we were there for a while I needed to go to the restroom. I was never allowed to forget this story. My aunt took me into the restroom and as she was trying to help me pull down my pants I said to her in my limited English, “Your gonna mess around and make me wooes it.” She said, “Loose what Bobby?” “My candy.” The candy that I had shoved down my pants in the store. Needless to say, I never did that again. Stealing is wrong no matter how you slice it, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the need. I am told that there are people through no fault of their own, seem to have an urge to steal. The term that is used is kleptomaniac. Should their crimes be overlooked because of a mental condition that makes them predisposed to theft?
Just one more, the toughest one, “You shall not murder.” This should be easy, we all know that murder is wrong according to God, and no civilization can last without laws against killing others. There was once an evil queen in Israel. She was the only woman to ever reign over Israel. She was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, you may have heard of Jezebel before. Her name was Athaliah. After the death of her son she had her own grandchildren killed; murdered the entire royal family in order to keep her grip on power. If she had done this today she would probably hire a lawyer and claim that she was innocent by reason of insanity. Let me say this and it might sound harsh, but there is no justification for murder. When we start making excuses for such terrible crimes we blur the lines of God’s law. If you have watched the news or read a newspaper you know about the terrible crime of a mother killing her three young children.
Here is where some get confused, and we shouldn’t. We are called not to be judgmental in matters of faith. We find ourselves sometimes quarreling over things within the Christian community. Back in Paul’s time, they made a big deal over meat that was sacrificed to idols, and Paul is clearly saying that these things should be left to the discretion of each individual. Within the Christian community, as members of God’s family, it is okay to disagree about things like the importance of one holiday over the other. If your brother or sister in Christ thinks differently about some of these small matters you should not judge them to be wrong. We all serve the same master and only he decides right from wrong, he is the only one qualified to judge. The key is to do everything to the Lord. When I get to heaven I am sure that God is going to show me a lot of places where I was wrong, but that’s okay, because I only need to be right about one thing: Jesus is my Lord and Savior.
We have to be tolerant of each other when it comes to the small details of our faith, but don’t allow the lines to be blurred. God’s Law is still black and white; there is still right and wrong. I want to leave you with one example of how ungodly our society has become. I get in trouble when I mention this man’s name, but you need to see the double standard that some people are operating under. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, there were a lot of people who tried to make the case that he deserved to die because of the things he said. Now, some of the same people are showing sympathy for Lindsay Clancy and arguing she deserves freedom after killing her three children. You don’t have to agree with someone’s politics or speech. But when words are treated as worthy of death while the killing of three innocent children is met with calls for compassion and freedom, something has gone terribly wrong. When did speech become unforgivable, but killing children became excusable? In the world the lines have become blurred between right and wrong, as God’s people, they must not.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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