Sermon: Build Up One Another

My welcome to that of Greg's. My name is Kevin McKelvy and I work here at the church, uh, overseeing our outreach to campus students, especially over at Michigan State. If I have not met you, I would love to, so please introduce yourself, uh, after the service, encourage you to open a Bible. Turn with me to Romans chapter 14, page number 948 if you're using one of the Bibles in the pew. My task tonight is to continue our summer evening service series going through a number

of topics from the end of Romans about how Christians are to treat each other as Paul writes this letter to the church in Rome. The first 11 chapters are very focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ, which he says in chapter one is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes First for the Jew and then for the Gentile, he talks about what it means for man to be sinful, what it means for God to have intervened in the life, death

and resurrection of his son Jesus, and what it means for those who will receive him in faith. Then he comes to chapter 12 and the focus shifts moving to how those who have believed are to live. In light of this gospel, we're focused particularly on how Christians who have all received this gospel are to live in relation to each other. The first four sermons in this series all came from chapter 12, and tonight we will move to chapter 14,

specifically verse 19, as we consider what it means to build up one another before we hear from God's word. Would you pray with me as we ask him to give us eyes to see and ears to hear.

Father, you who inspired this word, would you illuminate it in our hearts and minds? Would you help us to see you in this word, to have our eyes drawn up to heaven? Would you help us to not only hear your word, but to understand it, not simply to understand it, but to delight in it and Lord to obey it as well. Faithfulness and enjoy. Ask these things in the name of your son Christ. Amen.

Well, we're gonna focus tonight on verse 19. I would like to read the entire chapter. So let's read Romans chapter 14.

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains and let not the one who abstains past judgment on the one who eats for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls he will be upheld for the Lord is able

to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike, each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord, the one who eats. Eats in honor of the Lord since he gives thanks to God while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God for none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself for if we live, we live

to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the lord's for to this end, Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother or you? Why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written as I live says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God.

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it it unclean for if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love by what you eat.

Do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean,

but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble the faith that you have keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

There is a lot in those verses. There's a lot that we will not be able to address in our time to together,

but I wanted us to hear the whole context as we focus in on verse 19. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up building. If you were here a couple weeks ago, Colson preached on live in harmony with one another, I think is the first half of this verse. Pursue the things that make for peace. I would encourage you to go listen to it if you were not here tonight. We're gonna take things one step further.

It's not simply enough in Paul's mind for you to live with each other in a harmonious manner that is without any conflict. He calls you to go a step further and to pursue building up one another, not simply to avoid the negative, but to pursue the positive. As we consider this idea of mutual up building, there are many different things we could say and directions that we could go to try to give some parameters and narrow the scope a little.

I wanna look at the surrounding verses in light of verse 19. I wanna draw out three exhortations, which I hope will illuminate Paul's call to build up one another, three exhortations from chapter 14 that help us to understand what it means to build one another up. First, you are to pursue building up one another because eternity is at stake.

This may seem a little bit overly dramatic. I want you to look at the way that Paul speaks to these Christians in Rome. In verse 13 he says, therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother or verses 21 and 22. It is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

So Paul is, is using an image here of Christians walking the, the, the walk of faith, walking along the, the path of the Christian life and and the Christian will understand that this path leads somewhere there. There's a direction to this walking and verses 10 through 12 tell us where we are headed.

We will all stand before the judgment seat of God for it is written as I live says the Lord. Every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account before God.

We will give an account, you will give an account of your life before God. One day you will stand before him. You will give an account of what you have done, how you have lived. One of the things that you'll give an account for is how you have treated one another as we walk together towards this coming day of judgment, either upon our death or on Christ's return, Paul warns us against putting something in the path that would hinder our fellow believer,

putting something in their way that would cause them to stumble, to trip up on their way to this heavenly destination. He goes even further in verses 15 and 20 saying that these obstacles and stumbling blocks could ultimately lead to the destroying of your brother. The implication being that you can either be part of destroying your brother or sister or you can be part of building them up. You can either be working against the very work

that God is doing in your life and in the lives of your fellow Christians or you can be a part of that work. This may sound unreformed, but believe this is what the text is saying and I don't think it can be unreformed in the sense that Paul also says he will be upheld for the Lord is able to make him stand. So somehow the Lord is able to uphold those who are walking this path and some of the means that he uses will be the fellow travelers

who will either be placing stumbling blocks in the way of those who are walking with them, with the the possible outcome of destroying them or they will be working at building them up.

So what I want us to see there is that the, the very souls of your brothers and sisters are at stake as you either build them up or tear them down. So this is a weighty matter as we consider what it looks like to build up one another. In addition, your own soul is at stake. You are part of the each of us. In verse 12, you will stand before God and you will give an account whether you walked in love towards your brother or not, whether you grieved them

or encouraged them, whether you were selfless or selfish in your interactions, whether you passed judgment on your brother, whether you despised your brother, whether you helped them or tripped them on the way to heaven.

It's interesting here that that first and foremost, and even even though we're talking about a passage that deals with interactions between fellow believers and and each other, the primary focus does not seem to be towards another person. The primary motivation is not for the other person. The primary motivation is because you stand before Christ because you are his servant, because he died for them, because he died for you and lives again.

We give thanks. If we abstain, we honor him. If we eat, it's all about him and it's all before him that we stand and that we look and it's to him that we are ultimately accountable. It's to him that our brothers and sisters are accountable. We want to help them as they move towards that day. And it's to him that we are ultimately responsible as we ourselves move towards that day. Finally, the reputation of the message

of Christ itself is at stake. Look at verse 16. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. This good that is talked about, that that you regard can mean a lot of different things according to various commentators and the have different layers of meaning from food and drink today's but at the very outer layer for, for all of us, that which we regard as good is the gospel message itself. In this context, both those who are willing to eat meat

and those who would only eat vegetables both regard as good this message that Christ lived for us and died for us. So that whether we live or whether we die, we can be his. Paul is telling the Roman Christians in his day and he's saying to us today, do not treat each other in such a way that the outside world looks in and speaks of that gospel which you love, which you regard as good as evil. Don't treat each other in a way that Mars, the name

and the message of Christ.

So I hope you feel a little bit of weight as we, as we come into this. Paul does not speak of building one another up as simply a nice gesture or a kind thing to do. There's an urgency, a weight behind this command. Your eternal soul is at stake. The eternal souls of your brother and sister are at stake. The very reputation of the name and message of Christ is at stake. So the way we treat each other really matters. It matters for us, it matters for each other

and it matters for the name of Christ. So our first exhortation then is therefore pursue building up one another because eternity is at stake. In light of that, let's move now to our second exhortation. Pursue building up one another to promote growth in faith. Given what we just thought about and what is at stake, let's look for a minute at what the target of this edification of this up building is. This past week I was camping with some of you and,

and trying to compile some of the thoughts that would become this sermon. Uh, the downside is I was not able to be as productive as I likely would've been in a different setting. Hope it's offset by the benefit that I was able to experience mutual upbuilding as I wrestled with some of these ideas with some of you.

One of you shared a story that I found helpful in the 18 hundreds. There was an election in Britain for Prime Minister between Benjamin d Israeli and William Gladstone. I don't know anything about either of these men's, but it turned out that they had both gone on a date with the same woman different times, but at one point they had both gone on a date with the same woman. And as this, this election ended up happening and,

and they were running against each other, someone tracked down this woman and asked her for her opinion of both men. She said, when I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. D Israeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England. That the point was you can imagine who won this election, the one who who thought much of himself

or the one who helped somebody else to feel like they were were wonderful. Uh, the the we, we all kind of in intuitively get that we like being around people that draw out the best in us that are attentive and engaged with us. But I I'm afraid that this is what many of us think it means to build one another up. As Christians, as you seek to build up one another, you need to go one step further. The goal is not that someone would interact with you

and leave thinking how great you are certainly, or even how great they themselves are, but how great their great God is. How powerful and wonderful and trustworthy and faithful, how loving and just and holy and patient he is thinking about what he has done in Christ and how remarkable that is thinking. I want to follow him more fully. I want to give thanks to him in all I do thinking great thoughts of God. So as we think about mutual upbuilding, the target

of this is the faith which we hold in common. We are to seek to build one another up in such a manner, not simply that our self-confidence is enhanced, not simply that we feel better about ourselves or more cheerful or uh, any anything short of our faith being strengthened, our faith and our trust and our reliance and our hope in God being stronger. One definition I read this week for this word that's translated here up building was this, the act of one

who promotes another's growth in Christian wisdom, piety, happiness and holiness. This is what Paul is aiming for growth not simply as a person but as a Christian. Growth in holiness and wisdom and faith and hope and love and all the other things that a accompany receiving Christ and receiving his gospel by faith. We see here in this text that Paul's concern both at the beginning and the end is not actually the outward behaviors

of the various groups, but the faith of those on both sides. Verse one addresses the weak in faith as for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him but not to quarrel over opinions. And down in verse 23, whoever has doubts is condemned when he eats because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Paul is concerned here as he addresses these Roman Christians concerned with the inner man concerned

that they would love one another, that they would walk in love, concerned that they would pursue the kingdom of God, not as a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

What he desires to see built up and not destroyed is the saving, trusting fruit, bearing, persevering faith of his brothers and sisters. He's saying strengthen one another in faith. Do not tear one another down. See this throughout the scriptures in his first letter PE Peter will say that faith is more precious than gold. Just a few weeks ago, pastor Jason preached on Ephesians chapter three and how we might pray for each other

and mentioned there are many things we can pray for each other, many good things we can seek on behalf of one another, but that we ought not to neglect that which is of utmost importance that our fellow Christians would grow in knowledge, trust, and faith in Christ who loves them as you seek to build one another up. The target of that building project is increased faith. We strive to build up and strengthen and promote growth in one another's faith.

Do you desire that for those around you? Do you long to see your brothers and sisters grow in their faith not simply growing and doing things the way you do them or seeing things the way you see them, although that may be part of it, but because your great hope is that your brother or sister will have a stronger faith, more hope, more joy, more peace, more righteousness, more holiness flowing out of their lives.

Or if you're honest, do you tend to want from others? What would be more convenient for yourselves? You want to be right to be vindicated, even if it means, and maybe especially if it means that some of those for whom Christ died are exposed or humiliated. Just maybe just a little bit to build up one another is not to show how great you are or to tell someone else how great they are, but to 0.1 another to the one true and great God

therefore pursue building up one another to promote growth in faith.

It's now moved to our third exhortation. We've been dancing around this one the entire time, but I think it's helpful to explicitly think about it, pursue building up one another even when you disagree.

Context of this whole passage is Christians who are in disagreement disagree about what you can or cannot eat. Disagree about what you can or cannot drink. Disagree about the way to recognize or to not recognize certain days. Disagreements over what liberties. The Christian is free to exercise and yet Paul calls them to mutual upbuilding.

As we think about this mutual up building, as we think about who the target of that is, that the applications for this, uh, would apply in any number of relational situations between Christians, but Paul is telling those who have been purchased by Christ to build up others who have been purchased by Christ. This context doesn't rule out the call to build up one another when the other is our close friends or those that we get along easily with.

Those we agree with on various issues, we're called to build one another up in any of those situations, but for the most part that isn't really too high of a calling, we may need to be reminded to not simply enjoy each other but to seek, to encourage, to strengthen one another. But when it comes to those we disagree with those who may have a different understanding of politics or a different understanding of parenting

or different understanding of predestination, perhaps we become much more like the Christians in Rome judging and despising rather than building one another up. But Paul's command is in the context of real disagreement and even though he acknowledges that he is actually on one side of this disagreement, that he thinks there is a a clear theological answer, that there is nothing that is unclean, he does not praise the ones for having correct knowledge,

nor does he admonish the other for their weaker faith. What he focuses on is the way that they treat one another as they grow in their faith.

I think this is an important area for us in our day to spend a few minutes thinking about. I've heard multiple people over the last few years comment on the fact that this nation is divided as divided as it has ever been. I didn't live in other times. I don't know if that is true or not. Certainly the civil war seemed pretty divisive, but I do think that we can feel a sense of division along any number of fault lines in our current culture and we tend to congregate with those

who are most like us, who think like us and act like us. 2008, a man named Bill Bishop published a book called The Big Sort, which argued that Americans are more and more clustering themselves in like-minded communities that have little to no interaction with the like-minded communities of a different mind. That that more and more we're self isolating ourselves in, in little pods

of people who think like us.

As with most sociological attempts to understand the world we live in. This theory probably has some merit, probably has some holes in it, but you can see the inherent appeal immediately, right, would be less conflict if we didn't disagree with people about as many things. Um, maybe it's just easier to be around people who think like we do and live like we do and parent like we do and and want the same things that we want.

Yet I hope you can also see pretty quickly the equally inherent dangers. It's, I'll be honest, it's easy to be around people who are easy to be around. That's not a challenge. But at the same time, it further isolates us from people Who might be different than us. It it further removes relationship with those who disagree and risks making them sort of a faceless dehumanized. Other, whether this is happening in our larger culture

or not may be debatable, but whether this kind of self-selecting isolation has any place in the church is not, we are called to pursue one another for mutual upbuilding even when we disagree.

Can you imagine if you were a leader in the church in Rome? Perhaps it would've been tempting to just say, you know what, we're gonna have two different dinners. We'll have the meat eaters eat and fellowship over here and we'll have the veggie eaters eat and fellowship over here. Problem solved and there's certainly times where it makes sense to accommodate different convictions and, and certain things. You just have to decide how you're gonna

do one way or the other. But that's not what Paul commends here. He tells them to figure out a way to do this together to build one another up in their faith.

I think this is one of the ways that the church will stand out most in our culture today. This is one of the ways, maybe the major way in which the church can and will shine brightly as stars in this generation by living in love and humility for the name of Christ, even in strong disagreement about non-primary issues and probably we'll even disagree about what are non-primary issues and what are primary issues. But by wrestling through that, by seeking

to build one another up in our shared Christian faith, even if that is the only thing that you share with someone.

So in summary, build up one another because eternity is at stake to promote a growth in faith and even when you disagree.

As we move towards concluding, I wanna make a few quick final observations about what this might mean and look for, look like for us. First, I want to observe that Paul calls you to pursue that which makes for peace and mutual upbuilding. This building up of one another is not one directional might be easy to hear this and to think, okay, my job is to go out and build other people up. That's true, but as you do so, you are also

to be humble enough to be built up. Matthew Henry notes in his commentary, we all need to be edified, edified, none so strong that they may not be edified and none so weak that they may not edify. None of us have arrived. We all need to be continually built up for the day of Christ. So as we seek to build up those around us, we do so with the posture of humility that we will also grow in our faith and be edified. Can you feel that difference?

Can you, can you remember a time where someone has approached you as as clearly from above,

not thinking you have anything to offer them versus someone coming to you

desiring your good, desiring to help you and eager to learn and listen as well. This goes for the strong and the weak in the context of our passage tonight. But it could also go for the young and the old. For those who have been Christians for a long time or who are very new believers, this means that none of you, none of us are off the hook. Kids you are called to help the adults in this church to grow in their faith even as they seek to help you.

You're never too new or too different from everyone else. You're never too introverted or too disabled or too anything. We need each other from mutual Upbuilding. Second observation, Paul calls us to pursue that which makes for peace and mutual upbuilding. This is not something that will just happen. It is something that you will have to pursue. It will take effort and it will take intentional action.

There are probably limitless ways that we could seek to move in that direction, limitless ways that we could pursue this mutual up building. I encourage you to think about that with each other, what some of them might be. But a few to get started. I already mentioned this earlier, praying for one another. Go back and listen to Jason sermon from a few weeks ago on Paul's prayer in Ephesians three, A very practical way that you can participate in God's work

of building up the faith of your brothers and sisters. Faith is ultimately a gift from him. He is the author of our faith. He's the perfecter of our faith. So as we seek and desire our brothers and sisters to grow in their faith, it's not something we can do on our own. It must be something that we plead with God to do in their hearts. The author of Hebrews rights, let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works.

Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

Perhaps this is the quintessential preaching to the choir to tell you who have gathered on a Sunday evening to not give up meeting together. But we all continue to need to be reminded as you come to worship, be eager and ready to receive from Christ and His word. Be eager and ready to, to praise and worship him, but come eager and ready to pursue building up your brothers and sisters who you will sit next to, who you will talk to

in the lobby or the sanctuary who you will see week after week if you sit in the same section.

Continuing on with what the writer of Hebrews said, not just meeting together but encourage one another. Another way that we can help build each other up is to encourage each other to be quick, to point out evidences of grace in your fellow Christian. Quick to point out the fruit that you see in their lives and quick to share the ways that you have seen God at work in your own lives to make much of him. This week I was convicted to think of how many

of my conversations with brothers and sisters never get beyond the weather or sports. The latest headline much better if more of our conversations were regularly saturated with edifying thoughts of God regularly pointing out the grace that we see in each other. Another way that that we can pursue building one another up is to be honest about our disagreements, to have hard conversations, but to do them in humility and out of love and with an aim towards faith.

Part of what I think this would mean is, is we don't shy away from where we differ. We don't shy away from wrestling with those things that, that we find, uh, different people view differently. But we do so assuming, as Paul has said here and, and as he says other places in one Corinthians 13, where, where we give the benefit of the doubt we always trust, we always hope, we assume that the one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord

and gives thanks to the Lord the one who abstains, abstains, giving thanks to the Lord and honoring the Lord. So we approach each other in our disagreement saying, you view this differently, but I trust that you want to honor Christ. I trust that you are seeking to live out of faith. Can, can you help me to see how that works out in your mind? And I'm not pretending that everyone will come to the same conclusion, but I think as we wrestle

with disagreements, as we, we approach these disagreements to do so from a state of humility, from a state of trust for our brothers and sisters the same I think that we would want them to give us when the roles are reversed.

Building projects are not always easy. Sometimes they require chiseling off of things or sanding things down or nailing something into something. So there may be hard conversations that are part of building one another up there may be calling out sin when you see it, but we do so not flaunting our faith, not despising our brother not judging our brother. We do so longing for our brothers to grow in their faith.

One final thing I want us to consider, I want us to think about the, the fact and, and maybe this image will, will help to, to illustrate what it is that we are able and, and what it might look like to do this to each other, for each other. We are described in scripture as the family of God.

Think for a minute about biological families. Think about the power that biological families have to build up or to tear down.

Siblings can poke each other in a way that nobody else can. They also can stand up for each other in a way that nobody else can. Husbands and wives have incredible power to speak words of life or words of utter discouragement to one another.

How many of you can remember something one of your parents said to you or something one of your children said to you, either positive or negative years later?

The reality is the one that did that or said that may have no idea the lasting power of that on their parent or child, their sibling or their spouse. As the family of God, we share similar opportunities to speak to one another, either life or death. A fellow Christian can hurt one another in a way that, that a non-believer never can and can build another up in a way that a non-believer never could. We have the power to either sow peace

or discord to serve ourselves or Christ to build up or to destroy. Call from this text tonight in Romans 14 is to pursue building one another up. So I with the Apostle Paul, urge you to pursue that, to pursue building each other up because eternity is at stake for the growth of faith and even when you disagree, do you join me in prayer?

Merciful, father, we thank you that you are the author and perfecter of faith that you have laid down your life, your freedoms, your liberties, your privileges, that we might know you, that we might be saved from our sins. Would you help us to know that more deeply, to rejoice and delight and rest in that in ever increasing manner? And Lord, that we would extend that same grace, that we would be eager and quick to lay down our own comforts and rights

and privileges and freedoms for the sake of others for whom you have died, that we might together finish the race, stand before you in worship on the last day and not in condemnation for our good, for the great glory of your name. In that very name of Christ we pray. Amen.