Day 1735 - We are all accountable

A sermon shared with First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, September 17, 2017

Matthew 18:21-35

Romans 14:1-12

Over the last three posts, we have explored Paul’s guidance in his letter to the Romans the meaning of living the life of the gospel. Paul’s primary concerns are like the Farmers Insurance commercial that says, “We’ve seen almost everything.” Paul has seen over and over in the congregations that he helped established in cities that ring the Mediterranean Sea the stumbling blocks that limit our effectiveness at living and proclaiming the good news.

The gospel in its essence poses a high bar for behavior. For example we should treat even our enemies with compassion and forgiveness; however, both you and Paul know that we seldom treat our enemies, opponents or adversaries better than we treat our fellow Christians, in fact on occasion we can treat our fellow Christians as if they were opponents.

Paul walks through an orderly process to describe “Christian behavior.” First, he describes the some requirement for salvation. It belongs to those who proclaim the Lordship of Jesus (Romans 10:5-15) and are committed to perfecting living it. Paul rightly assumes we understand that voicing the proclamation, “Jesus is Lord,” means that we are expected to proclaim that good news in word and deed.

Then, he turns to the shape of our Christian life. If we believe the gospel and the unjustified gift of grace, that is, that we do not earn salvation but it is given to us freely as a gift, we are humbled. We are humbled, not just by this unearned gift, but that God has granted it to everyone of faith. We are humbled because this means we and our particular gifts are all equal in God’s eyes. Each of us has a part, together we form the strength and only purpose of the Church (Rom. 12:1-8).

Accepting this truth, that we are equal parts of the body of Christ (the Church) through this undeserved, invaluable blessing of grace, empowers us freely to extend Christian hospitality even to those who criticize or persecute us or are our opponents (Romans 12:9-21). Our compassion leaves a mark on them.

Last week, Paul made the third point. If Jesus is Lord and we are equal in the eyes of God sharing the same unmerited gift of grace called to live that life of the gospel in the world as Christ’s representative, then we are living in a new time that is displacing the old ways of judgment and death.

This time not only calls us to offer the love of Christ to people as we await the fulfillment of God’s promise to gather us all together as his children and bring us home, it calls us to become the new watchmen of the emergence of this new world of glory and love of God on earth and heaven

Rather than proclaiming judgment as was required of Ezekiel, we are called as watchmen to this new world of grace that embraces the two great commandments, to love God and love others as God loves us.

Love doesn’t mean to common idea of passionate attraction, it means the glue that holds us all together as Christians. Love means that we promote actively the good of others (Romans 13:8-10).

 Today our passage essentially consists of an exclamation point to the messages of the previous three posts that preaches the message itself.  Paul uses strong imagery. If we are suitably clothed by Christ, that is, we have the mindset of love (actively promoting the good of others), then we will beware the one danger we all face if we let go of humility, gaining a self-righteous attitude that judge other Christians by our own standards rather than leaving that judgment to the Lord. Such judgment serves only one purpose: it drives people away from the good news and scandalizes the gospel.

Paul illustrates this guidance using an argument over what food is beneficial to eat. Obviously, the advice applies broadly to all arguments over the interpretation and requirements of scripture that go beyond the essential and necessary act of the faith: the proclamation, “Jesus is Lord” and living a life that reveals it.

So many preachers and denominations take the Law of the Old Testament with all its interpreted rules is a form of judgment as the basis to judge another person’s righteousness. They may even use comments in the New Testament about judgment that is clearly stated to be in the realm of God’s prerogative to define for us “rules of faith.” We have all heard or been subject to criticism by another Christian about something we do that they believe means we are violating some passage of scripture that bars one from grace.

In the best case when someone does that faithfully and with humility after much prayer, they are interpreting scripture to reveal what they think is God’s will. The word for that kind of interpretation is called dogma.  Dogma just to be sure we are on the same page, means the interpretation or teaching of scripture as truth. We should also never forget that Dogma is a human interpretation of scripture, not God’s.

The sad thing is when someone uses that interpretation to add more conditions to receiving grace or using it to judge another Christian’s behavior as good, moral or even Christian.

Someone came to me this past week with this exact problem.  They are a Presbyterian attending another denomination. The preacher has been telling the person they were not saved because they were not born-again or baptized in their denomination. (I spent an hour explaining Paul’s famous words about One Lord, one baptism in Ephesians 4:1-6.)  

We can certainly find many examples in words of Jesus and Paul that describe the behavior desired of Christians, but they are not go/no-go rules. Jesus said one thing connects you to life, believe in me and you have eternal life.

I challenge you to go through the gospel and find any criterion for faith in the New Testament that goes beyond what John’s quote of Jesus above, or Paul’s statement, “I believe Jesus is Lord and I will do everything in my power to live the good news as Christ lived it.” Paul reminds us that when we say that, it means we are not free to interpret or add other conditions to what Jesus said. To do so relies on human judgment, not God’s judgment. To assume we can decide that another’s form of worship or Christian behavior is right or wrong is an act of self-idolatry, and as I said before, it scandalizes the gospel.

We call it scandalous because we have turned the good news upside down taking judgment from God and God alone.

Does that mean anything a Christian decides fits within God’s plan of salvation is ok? Does it mean we have a license to stretch the definition of good and bad to allow us to do anything? Does it mean we can sin magnificently because we are saved? Paul says, “By no means!”

What it does mean is we live to the Lord. It means we do not have the authority to argue with or provoke our Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran, Pentecostal and Presbyterian friends about how we express our faith that Jesus is Lord. Paul says, “God will decide if one has erred in his time, not our time.

What it does mean is that every Christian has a burden of responsibility to exercise prayerful, discerning thought (not flippant judgment) to decide proper and Christian action in a peculiar circumstance.

In fact, it goes beyond that. Do you know what the word “forbearance” means? It means having tolerance and restraint, leniency, forgiveness. If God has forbearance of our faults, surely our responsibility demands forbearance of our fellow Christians over matters of dogma.

The reason for forbearance is that God alone knows what is in a person’s heart. We cannot make our own convictions about Christian conduct the measure of faith of another without disrespecting God. We cannot make our own convictions about Christian conduct because: 

è we are all servants of God.

è we all are to honor God.

è God, not us, is the judge and he alone decides what is in another person’s heart.

Self-righteousness is spiritually dangerous because it excludes humility and blinds us to our accountability for a responsible, thankful response to the grace of God by giving grace ourselves.

Forbearance in matters of interpretation means we shouldn’t abuse those who take a different path about the food they eat, the day of worship, when to serve communion, how to baptize, whether we use wine or grape juice in communion, whether dancing and music are forbidden and all the other things we fight about.

If we distill it all down into a single sentence it means that we are all accountable for our own actions.

We are accountable as to whether our actions uphold and promote fellow believers or tear them down. We are accountable for quality of our own Christian life because improving the quality of our life improves the lives of Christians around us.

That, as Paul advised the Philippians, we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in us, enabling us all to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13).

We are all accountable to the same God.