A Valentine's Day Message

This is the message I gave at Dwelling Place for those of you who couldn't make it because you were out with your special guy! ;)

Sometimes when I sit down to write a message, I have been thinking about it for a while and it just kind of flows and it isn’t a big deal to write it but some I sit down to write and it’s just a jumble. Nothing flows or fits together. Well this one was the later. I thought I knew the direction the Lord wanted me to go in but when I sat down to write. It was a mess. I had a million thoughts and ideas all going in different directions and I needed a focus; something to bring it all together. So I put it aside for a day and just prayed about it and asked the Lord and some others for some help and ideas. And as no surprise the Lord came through.

You see at first I just thought this was a message I was to give and it happened to fall on Valentine’s Day but I don’t think that any more. I think God wanted me to give this message today. I had a lot of things and people kind of pressuring me to cancel and not have Dwelling Place tonight. I went back and forth on the decision and I know some ladies aren’t here because it is Valentine’s Day but today is the perfect day to talk about Romans 14. I really don’t think there could be a more perfect day to talk about this chapter.

Ok, so I was thinking about chapter 14 and I got to wondering. I think Paul was writing and writing hoping that this blended church, of Gentile and Jewish believers, would get it and would put aside all the pettiness and really be the church God wanted them to be but he was nearing the end of his letter and he has pretty much told them everything he needs to tell them. I wonder if he thought, just in case they didn’t get what I was saying up until now, let me be really clear. You see if they had been living out the first part of this letter, the first 13 chapters, Paul wouldn’t have needed chapter 14. And if we would just live out the first 13 chapters of Romans we wouldn’t need chapter 14 either. But here we are and unfortunately we need to study chapter 14. All of us need to study it and if you think you don’t need to study it then that is a sure sign that you need a college course on chapter 14. Wouldn’t it be so nice to be a part of a Christian family that doesn’t need the reminder of chapter 14? There will come a day!!! But until that day gets here, we need to study chapter 14 and live it out.

In your study the author kind of summed everything up in a few statements and asked us to check what boxes we need to work on. These are the statements: Accept each other even when we disagree; Do not judge others when their convictions differ from mine; Through study we will mature our own thinking; Focus our convictions on God, not people; and Choose not to live selfishly. I don’t know about you but I checked all five boxes. I have lots of areas that I am always working on and this is no different. There is always more for me to learn. Just when I think I’ve gotten one area under control another area creeps up and bites me in the behind! Grrrr. This process stuff gets tough sometimes but I would rather be in process than not growing at all.

So as I was pondering and praying about this it occurred to me. Monday is Valentine’s Day. What is the answer to all of those statements, what is the answer to Romans chapter 14? The answer is love. That’s why today is the perfect day to talk about this chapter. What we are going to do is look at other passages that help us to understand how we are to treat each other, regardless of whether we are the weaker or stronger sister. We are all called to love each other. It’s the second part of the Great Commandment. It is really the motivation behind the Church Wide Campaign called Start becoming a Good Samaritan. It is the way others, those who are not yet Christ Followers, know we are His disciples. If we could just figure this out, everything else would truly be easier in our relationships with each other.

To start off with, pull out your Bibles and turn to 1 Cor. 13. I want to read the first 3 verses to you from the Message. They say, “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.” I think that kind of puts things into perspective but we have heard and read those verses so many times we sometimes forget that God intends us to really live them out. If I stand up here teaching you and then you see me at the grocery store or the gym and I am rude to you or someone else. It won’t matter what I say to you. You will have seen me not living out what I say I believe and what I say and what I do will not have matched up. My credibility with you will have been shot. Now I realize we all make mistakes but as a follower of Christ, I need to be aware that what I say and what I do needs to match up; even when I am grumpy or I’m having a bad day. It isn’t an excuse. We can look at those first two points from the summary at the end of the lesson in light of this passage. When we disagree or have different convictions or opinions or traditions, that doesn’t give us license to judge or look down on each other. We are called to love each other.

Now before we go further, I want to say that we are not talking about things that are salvation issues or blatant sins. Murder is sin no matter what. On the other hand what style of music you like to hear at church that is a preference or a tradition. Or what you think someone should or shouldn’t wear to church, not a sin issue. It is a preference. It may be something someone needs to mature in but it isn’t a sin issue. Whether someone has a glass of wine with dinner is not a sin issue. Do you see what I am saying? Can you understand the difference here? OK, I am not saying you can’t ever have a discussion with someone about different areas but here is the test. Can you have a discussion about one of these issues or something similar and not get really worked up? When you have the conversation if they don’t agree can you walk away with the relationship still intact or even stronger than it was? You see these conversations need to be two way streets. If you are talking with someone you need to be open to the fact that you may be holding on to an opinion or tradition, thinking it is Biblical when it really isn’t and the person you are talking to may be walking in a freedom you don’t currently have. You may be the one that needs to grow, even if you started with the notion that it was the other person that needed to do the growing. Does that make sense to you? Are you tracking with what I am saying?

OK, let’s look at another passage in 1 Cor. Turn to chapter 8. I am not going to read through this whole chapter but here is the gist of what it is saying. The issue was eating meat offered to idols which was probably what the issue was in Romans 14. Some of the believers were eating meat that had been offered to idols and it wasn’t a big deal for them. They understood that those idols are not real gods and just something made out of wood or medal so to them who cares if they had been offered to these statues. But for others who had maybe come out of those types of religions it was hard for them to get past that the meat had previously been offerings to these gods and it was just wrong for them to eat the meat after it had been an offering to these idols. Now technically neither was wrong. There was nothing wrong with the meat. It was ok to eat but for the others if it bothered them to eat it, they needed not to eat that meat. Here is the thing. Eating the meat was actually a liberty, a freedom for some of the believers but it was causing the others to stumble when they knew they were eating it. Listen to the last half of this chapter and what Paul has to say here. “ 8 Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? 11 And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. 12 Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” Basically Paul is saying that these weaker brothers or sisters where important enough for Christ to die for them. We should love them enough to give up a meal for them. Just because something is ok for me to eat doesn’t mean I should eat it if it causes someone to stumble. A modern example might be drinking. You may have a liberty to have a glass of wine when you are out to dinner with a group of friends but maybe there is someone in that group that has struggled with alcoholism and you know about it. Would you still have a glass of wine in front of them, knowing that it could cause them to stumble? I would think that most of us would not have the glass of wine. We would give up that liberty because we loved that person enough not to put something in front of them that might cause them to stumble. Do you see how love becomes the motivation behind how we interact with each other? And in both Romans and Corinthians Paul is talking about how we interact with other believers.

On that note let’s look at another couple of verses that are probably pretty familiar to you but just want to draw your attention to them. They are found in John 13 verses 34 and 35. This is Jesus actually talking to the disciples. They say, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Others are watching you. Other believers, your small group, your family, seekers, those that you work with, people who don’t know Christ. They are watching. They want to see what is different about us. If there isn’t anything different; then what’s the point. This is what should be different. How we love each other should be different. How we treat others in the family of God should be different. Sometimes it is different alright but not in a good way. Sometimes we treat other believers with contempt and with judgment. This isn’t what Christ told us we should be known for. He said we should be known for how we love each other. Let me ask you this, what do you think you are known for? Kind of an interesting and possibly scary question but one we need to ask.

I have one last passage I want us to look at tonight before you go to your groups. Turn to Phil. 2. Seriously this is one of my very favorite chapters in the whole Bible. At one time I had a good portion of it memorized. I need to go back and work on it again because it is such a good passage to remind us of how we should be living. Let me read a portion of this chapter to you. “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

When I read those verses everything seems less complicated and more clear to me. How I am supposed to live my life is not a big mystery. I am to love my sisters in Christ. I am to put them and their interests and well being ahead of my own. The reason I do this is pretty simple too. I do it because that is the example that Christ left for us. He loved us so much that He died for us. Just let that really sink in. All these things that separate us as believers, can we really not set them aside and love each other? Christ gave His life for that brother or sister that we have a difference of opinion with. How does our opinion stand up next to the sacrifice that Christ gave to save that brother and sister? Something to really think about.

Ok, I thought I was going to end there but I have one more thing I want to share with you. Go back to where we began tonight. Turn back to 1 Cor. 13. My friend Tiffany likes to read this chapter a little different than it is actually written. When she reads through the chapter she replaces the word love with God, so verse four would read “God is patient and kind, God does not envy or boast, He is not arrogant.” The chapter sounds really cool that way. But I have a challenge for you. If the goal is for us to be loving towards others then try this. In verses four through seven can you replace the word love with your name? Are any of those statements true about you? I know, that kind of stinks. Believe me, I don’t think I can do it, not all of them for sure and most of them on a very limited basis. But wouldn’t it be really cool if when we got to the end of our race that others could and would say of us, that we were patient and kind, we didn’t envy or boast, that we were not arrogant or rude. We didn’t insist on our own way; we were not irritable or resentful; we didn’t rejoice in wrong doing but rejoiced in the truth. That we bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things and endured all things. Sounds kind of like, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Egypt

I haven't been following all that is going on in Egypt like I should be but the past few days I have been catching up on my reading in my one year Bible, (I am almost caught up) and I have been reading about Egypt during a different time in history. Moses and Aaron are there going before the Pharaoh day after day. They meet with Pharaoh asking to go worship God, Pharaoh says no, God sends a plague, Pharaoh has enough of the plague, asks Moses to pray to lift the plague, the plague is lifted and Pharaoh goes back on his word and refuses to let Israel go. Seriously, how many plagues does it take? Evidently it takes at least 10.

Ya know, I always used to think that Pharaoh was an idiot. I mean really, he is messing the God. Even if he didn't believe after a few of those plagues you would think he would at least realize he needed to do something different. But no, he repeated the pattern over and over and over. If I had been in Egypt at that time I would have been ticked at him. It's one thing for his stubbornness to effect him but Pharaoh's stubborn heart had huge effects on everyone. He said no and everyone had to deal with blood, frogs, gnats, flies, livestock dying, boils, hail storm, locusts, darkness and eventually death. Excuse me but I think I would like to take a vote on this issue.

There are two things that really stuck me about these passages of scripture found in Exodus. The first one is, that if you are a leader, (or maybe I should make this more personal) if I am a leader, I had better be sure to know the consequences for my decisions. My decisions not only effect me but they effect those that I am leading. If my heart is not following the Lord, then my decisions are going to lead others away from the Lord and what is right. Pharaoh's choices and decisions had devistating consequences for the people of Egypt. A few verses from Philippians chapter 2 come to mind here.

If you compare Pharaoh's leadership style to that of Jesus' they are pretty much opposite. Every decision Pharaoh made, he was only thinking about himself. When we look at Jesus, every decision He made was for others. He was always laying aside His needs or wants for those of other people. He said to his disciples in Matt. 20:28, "Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve. . ." So seriously, how are you leading, how am I leading. Are we putting others ahead of ourselves or not? And don't be telling me you aren't a leader. We are all leaders. We all have friends and family, how are we leading in those areas?

The second thing that struck me was the idea of "plagues". I wonder how many "plagues" have come into my life because of having a hard heart towards God and not listening to what He is telling me to do. I wonder how many "plagues" we could all avoid if we would just soften our hearts towards God, listen to what He is telling us and do what He says. In my natural self, I tend to be pretty stubborn, but it is something the Lord is helping me with. The best way to have a soft heart towards the Lord and to be able to listen to His words is to spend time with Him in prayer and to be in His Word, the Bible, everyday. I certainly don't need any extra "plagues" in my life and I don't want my decisions and choices to cause others to have to suffer through any plagues.

Guess I had better quit writing and get caught up on the rest of my daily readings!! :0)