Who Is the Servant?
The
opening verse of Romans 15 is so important, especially coming off of the verses
found in Romans 14. The spiritually
strong are responsible for dealing with the failings of the spiritually weak,
not the other way around. Let me put it
simply. If you are a spiritually strong
person and you believe God is telling you to do it one way but a spiritually
weak brother can’t see it that way, it is not your (or my) right to put the
other person down because of it. Yes, we
can make spiritual stands. Yes, we can
assert what we believe to be true. But
it is not our right to put down the other person because of their spiritual
weakness.
On the
other hand, God doesn’t want us to tolerate bad theology and bad spirituality,
either. We are called to deal with our
Christian brothers and sisters in love.
We are called to come along side of them, understand where they are, and
try to help bring them along to a better spiritual place. Sometimes this is done through nice and
compassionate words. Other times this is
done through words of conviction. But
there is a difference between dealing with wrong theology and dealing with less
mature theology.
In either
case we are not given permission to judge another person simply because we are
“spiritually stronger” than the other. I’ll
confess that this is a lesson that I am served to learn from time to time. It is far to easy to judge people who don’t
believe as I do.
Now, I
understand that Paul is talking about this in terms of the Jew-Gentile
relationship. The Jews had no right to
look down upon the Gentile Christians, nor did the Gentile Christians have any
right to look down upon the Jews – especially the law-abiding Jewish
Christians. But this topic has a good
amount of truth for us as post-modern Christians. In our pluralistic denominational
Christianity where we have liturgical Christians, free Christians,
baby-baptizing Christians, adult baptizing Christians, worship on Sunday
Christians, worship during the evening Christians, King James Bible Christians,
Speaking-in-Tongues as proof of salvation Christians, Organ/Hymnody Christians, Guitars/Drums
Christians, etc … the truth is that there are many things that can and will divide
us. There are many high horses that we
can ascend while looking down upon those who don’t happen to be on the same
horse as us. In the end, we have no
right to get on that horse in the first place.
Today we
learn that in Christ it is the duty of the spiritually strong to deal with the
spiritually weak. Yesterday we learned
that so long as something (or someone) serves Christ, we are to give it the
freedom to exist in the Kingdom of God.
We have no horse to get upon; we have no reason to look down upon
anyone. That is Paul’s point. I am not to determine who is the “best
Christian.” Rather, I am to determine
how I can serve Christ best and make room for the other person to also serve
Christ.
From this
perspective it just makes sense. Why
would I want to look down upon someone who is legitimately serving Christ? Now, if they are not legitimately serving
Christ, we’re talking about a whole new ball game. We’re talking about sin at that point.
Paul’s Boasting
As my last
point, I am really struck by Paul’s statement in Romans 15:18. Paul will not venture to speak on anything
except what Christ is doing in His life for the sake of the kingdom of God (my
paraphrase, of course). Wow. Paul is seriously focused here. I am struck by this devotion to the task at
hand.
I know I
have a tendency to stray from the task at hand.
I do have a tendency to focus on God’s work for a time, but then also
focus on this neat little technology here or there. Or I have a tendency to get more excited
about football or some other sport than about God. Or I have a tendency to get more excited
about having fun with other people rather than focusing on how I can show
Christ to them. But Paul’s words are
clear. The focus of the Christian is not
on the life that we live – the focus of the true follower of God is on the
calling that God has given that person.
How many
American Christians really fell for this trap this past weekend? How many American Christians didn’t even go
to church this past weekend because of all the Super Bowl hype and preparations? How many American Christians went to church,
but they were really more excited about the pre-game party happening after
church? I know I fell into that trap a
bit myself – and this after missing the whole first quarter because I was praying
and having a great discipleship moment with a congregation member! Even after a great spiritual moment like that
I still fell completely back into the hype of the world and got sucked into the
“world’s way of thinking” and “the world’s way of prioritization.”
I know I
could do a much better job of taking Paul’s assertion in this chapter more
seriously. I will focus on Christ and
His calling for me. How foolish am I to
think that life is about me? No, as I
preached this past Sunday, life is about God.
He is the main character in this story of creation. I am simply a part of His cast – and a pretty
insignificant one at that!
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment