Emergency Love (9/11 style)

Text: Romans 14:1-12

Focus: Christian Love

Function: Loving Each Other without Judging each other.

Form: Bible Study

Intro: This is the second of 3 from Romans on how we love each other.

Yesterday, I took my son and grandkids to the Greek Festival at the Greek Orthodox Church. We had authentic Gyro sandwiches and I brought home some Baklava for my mom.

It made me think of my niece and my nephew. He was recently ordained into the Orthodox Church. And along with his journey into that ancient form of Christianity, they also decided to become Vegetarians.

My Niece's daughter was in 1^st grade and the all the students became aware of her different eating habit. They were together with a couple of other parents and one of the young children was explaining to another one of the students why my Niece's daughter wouldn't eat the hot dogs the rest of the kids were eating. Except she got it wrong: She said “they don't eat meat because they are vegetables!”

So, the niece's daughter has taken on the name, vegetable since them. Apparently she doesn't mind.

If one goes to Kettering hospital on a Saturday, one will find that the menu is very limited, as well as all the other services. The 7^th Day Adventist Christ, which sponsors that hospital, has a large membership that refuses to eat meat.

Is this passage talking about vegetarianism? Is there anything wrong with Vegetarians? Or, if you are a Vegetarian, is there anything wrong with people who eat meat?

The text is not about vegetarianism. This passage is a teaching passage about Christian love and trusting God to do the work of transforming us into people who live like Jesus. It is about trusting God to do it in us as well as others.

Apparently, there was conflict in the Roman Church between the different religious practices of different believers. There were people who refused to eat meat. Those people who refused to eat meat were judging those who did. Judgment. They thought they were more pious, more godly, because they were vegetarians.

At the same time, the meat eaters were mocking, or resenting those who refused.

It is a natural reaction. A person tells you that you are not spiritual enough because you are not like them. And, if you are deeply in love with God, have a fervent prayer life, do the good deeds that Jesus said you would do, you would resent the remark that you are not as good of a Christian as someone else based on an obscure teaching in the bible.

Where did they get the idea of not eating meat? Well, when we read the list of sins that people were doing right before the flood, one of those listed is eating meat. Apparently, there were people who knew Adam, or people who knew people who knew Adam and they would remember that God gave humanity plants to eat.

In Creation, we were made to eat vegetables. And the thinking was, “why not show God we love Him enough to go back to the original creation?”

These people have such a zeal for God that they want to go back to that original state.

I appreciate Zeal. But after the flood, God Himself said that it was okay to eat meat. (Genesis 9:3) And before the flood, Cain slew Abel. Cain grew crops, Abel raised Sheep.

Zeal is good. And there is logic to not eating meat as a way to show that we want to go back to the garden of Eden and that perfect place of restoration with God.

God is pleased with acts of devotion. But that does not mean that others who have different acts of devotion are less spiritual.

Have you ever tried the Spiritual discipline of fasting? I have a good friend, a really good friend and he is a very Godly man. Every year at Lent, I choose something to fast from. But he, he just doesn't practice it. So, he tells everybody that during Lent, jokingly, he is fasting from watermelon.

So here is what Paul is talking about. If I were to judge him as not being as Spiritual as me because he doesn't do a Lenten Fast, then I would be sinning by violating the principle in this passage.

If my friend were to mock me, or accuse me of putting on a false Christianity, if he said something like: “why do you fast only during Lent? Jesus should be served all year long.” Or if he made fun of me for being weaker in faith because he was just as close to God without a fast as I am with one, then he too would be violating the principle of this passage.

Brother Paul is telling us that every one of us will have different convictions about different issues. The Holy Spirit will not work the same way in every person. It is the same Holy Spirit, and He works differently in every one of us.

I believe that this is a test for us. It is a test of our Christian love. Look again at verse 4: “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before their own masters that they stand or fall.”

If you judge the employee of another person, you aren't judging the employee, you are judging the boss' ability to manage his or her work force.

When we judge another Christian, we judge the Lord's ability to make that person into a Christlike person. Listen, without the Holy Spirit at work inside of us, it is impossible for us to become like Jesus Christ. It isn't even our job to make ourselves like Christ, so how can it be our job to make others like Him?

Brother Paul goes into another area that Christians back then had begun fighting over. In verse 5 he tells us that some people choose one day above another. Some people kept the Jewish tradition of worshiping on the Sabbath, or Saturday. Others switched the day to Sunday

Did you ever wonder why we worship on Sunday and not Saturday? We know the 10 commandments, to keep the Sabbath holy.

The change happened because after Jesus died and before He rose again, the bible states that He was in hell disarming the Devil Himself. He took the keys to hell away from Satan, preached the gospel to the people where were there and led a host of them into heaven with Him. On Saturday, the Sabbath, He was working and since He rose on Sunday, it became known as “The Lord's Day.” And, we read in 2 Corinthians that the believers began to use Sunday as their day to gather together for their corporate worship services.

But Paul says, stop fighting about it: “what is the difference? Saturday or Sunday? Who cares?”

And the debate got worse: Then he says, there is another group out there who believes that every day is the same. And again, the book of Hebrews states that since we are believers, we have entered into a form of Sabbath rest. Therefore, Christians should be worshiping every single day. And you guessed it, the group that held to Saturday criticized the groups that held to Sunday, and the group that held every day. The every day group criticized the other two and the Sunday group criticized the other two.

And the Lord, I believe, just looked down from heaven and wondered: “just what part of `love one another' do you not understand?”

Listen, there was pride, judgmentalism and conflict in the church right from the beginning.

It proves one thing. Although we are Christians, we are not yet perfect.

The big issue behind it is the issue of pride. Or the issue of competing with each other to be better than each other.

I wonder if this concept of loving, and not judging one another had been practiced by the world, if we would not have to go through this pain that we are experiencing this day as we remember 9/11.

An Arab Prince wanted to donate $10,000,000 to NY City to help with the cost, but the money was refused because the prince had said that if the USA changed its policy toward Israel, this would not have happened.

I wish they had taken the money. Not that I am against Israel in any way shape of form. But extremists in those two races are engaged in a fight, that seems to be a fight to the death. It is up to the Church to be an example of love and forgiveness. God is counting on us to show them a better way.

So Brother Paul illustrates the nature of Christian love by calling all of us believers to give up the pride that causes us to compete with others to see who serves God better.

Last week we saw that the only form of competition allowed is to try to outdo each other in the way that we love one another. But not for pride's sake.

If we are called to be an example to the world, then it must work out in the painful places of our own lives.

A dear saint, after 9/11 told me that she would never forgive. I forgive her for that, and pray that she become like this passage.

And the problem, oftentimes is pride.

When Peter bragged that He would be the best disciple and would follow Jesus even if he died trying, Jesus told Peter just who vulnerable and weak he still was. “Tonight,” Jesus said, “Tonight you will betray me three times.”

I am sure that when Peter heard those words that his will power, his resolve was strengthened. He was going to look out for it and be especially careful to be faithful, even if they ran him through.

But we know what happened. That night, he did indeed let fear control him and he turned his back on the Lord.

Why? The Lord knows that there is only one way be can be faithful to Him, and that is by God's power, not our own.

The thing is, once Christ has come in, lives begin to change. For some, they get bold, for some, they get quieter. For some God focuses on setting them from from an addiction, for others, God's deliverance is from bitterness or unforgiveness. The thing is, God is working out His plan in every life at His pace and according to His schedule.

And the command is to give up judging the sincerity of another person's worship and commitment.

The Holy Spirit knows what is best for each individual. So, in verses 8-12, Paul explains that for the person who chooses the path of abstaining, the path to die to oneself, then they are dying to self on behalf of the Lord.

The person who chooses not to abstain is celebrating the life that comes with new freedom. And thy honor God the same way.

Let every person be convicted in their own hearts.

And let us learn to worry about our own selves and no one else.

When this works out in our personal lives, it translates into the way we love others. God wants us, as Christians to love both Arabs and Jews for God does not play favorites.

I have a friend, a Jewish woman whose parents escaped Poland in the late 20's. They came to Palestine before there was any Jewish state established. The rest of their family did not survive the Holocaust. I asked her about peace between her people and the Arabs. She spoke about suicide bombings. She said: “When they love their children more than they hate us, we can begin the process of peace.”

I thought those were pretty good words, but behind them I heard an accusation that all Arabs hate all Jews.

A youth from my last Church is now living in Palestine. She is a strong Christian. And she is working with other Christians in Palestine to help her people live and love like Jesus commanded.

There are both Christians and Jewish people in Israel who are working to enlighten people that God loves both races.

These people are in harm's way. They are risking their lives to bring about the change that will bring peace between the two countries. If there was peace there, 9/11 would not have happened.

This passage of scripture is about loving each other by not competing over whose faith is more sincere. It is about Christians showing love regardless of the way others respond.

And it is personal. It talks about a way of life that pleases God and brings about the love that God has that will change the world.