Title: To Establish the Work of God
Content To establish the work of God (Romans 14:10-23)
Sharing: What do you think is God's work?
1. The work of God is the work of God (verse 20).
(1) The work of God is that the kingdom of God is accomplished on this earth (Matthew 6:10).
The Early Church was a community where the members shared the things they had and shared with each other in love. The blessing of the church is to meet and share love with one another. He lived with a clear goal of faith that the kingdom of God should be established wherever Christians went. However, it seems that the churches at that time had problems with the fellowship of the saints. It is none other than the saints accusing one another (verse 10). Why do these conflicts arise between brothers who should love them? Because some of us have weak faith (verse 1).
(2) God will make us all stand on the judgment seat in the future (verses 10-12).
2. Loving your brother (verses 14-16)
(1) You must not do anything that will cause your brother to stumble (verse 13).
The Apostle Paul concludes in verse 13, saying, "Do not judge one another" in response to all these non-essential debates. The most important thing is to love and build up your brother. The people we need to build are brothers, not enemies. We are a family. There are two places in the church where believers can practice love and fellowship with each other. One of them is a Sunday worship service, and the other is a cell (small group) meeting. Since the fellowship of saints is spiritual, they are connected to each other and become a temple (Ephesians 2:20-22).
(2) Because one's own judgmental heart is deceitful, we must first look at ourselves (verse 14).
Usually when you see someone who slanders others, you see a lot of people who criticize that person. If I am blaming another person, that person is committing something worthy of accusing myself again (Matthew 7:3, Romans 2:1). Therefore, before blaming others, we should examine ourselves and see if there is anything we can blame ourselves for.
⑶ The reason we should not judge, criticize, or ignore each other is that we are brothers who share the blood of Jesus (verse 15).
You don't know how ugly it is for people to criticize others without knowing themselves. Because there is no heart to love the brother in him. God loves our brothers as much as He loves us. Please remember that God loves that person and that Jesus died on the cross for that person as well. When love goes wrong, it is easy to become an emotion. When emotions enter, wounds are created. So you criticize others. As children of God, we must love our brothers so that we will not be slandered by others (verse 16).
3. Establishing the Kingdom of God (verses 17-23)
The kingdom of God is not a tradition, a system, a method, or a habit. The kingdom of God is “righteousness and peace and joy.” The kingdom of God is not centered on eating and drinking (verse 17).
(1) to bear the fruit of righteousness, peace, and joy
This is the fruit of the soul. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy. And it is spiritual. This world seeks profit rather than righteousness. They say profit is a good thing, but it is not. We must live righteously. For that to happen, your relationship with God must be right. That righteousness is obtained through faith (Romans 1:17).
Today, our society is saturated with struggle and violence. The goal of the struggle is to achieve profit. But the kingdom of God is peace. We humans have no true peace apart from God. Today's society seeks pleasure rather than pleasure. In a pleasure-seeking society, there is no spiritual joy, no reward, no gratitude, no emotion. So we must seek true joy. The fruit of joy is also the blessing of our human spirit. It does not come from the pleasures of the flesh.
(2) Building up in the Holy Spirit
Are you now pursuing these blessings of heart: righteousness, peace, and joy? If so, please be filled with the Holy Spirit. When I see a person who lives a life filled with the Holy Spirit, there is always joy and peace in my heart. As we live by forgiving and loving others, there is joy and peace in our hearts. My heart is always shaking and the lack of peace is proof that I cannot tolerate and love others. The essential rule of the kingdom of God is to live in the Holy Spirit. If we live in the Holy Spirit, we can bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and only then can we make a small contribution to the establishment of the kingdom of God on this earth.
Those who enjoy the righteousness, peace, and joy of God are praised by others because they build the kingdom of God. We are recognized as a man of God (verse 18). Here Paul refers to the saints as “those who thereby serve Christ.” In other words, a believer must be filled with the Holy Spirit and serve Christ with the fruit of righteousness, peace, and joy to become a saint.
⑶ Acting by faith (19-23).
Therefore, what should the saints who are living who bear the fruits of righteousness, peace, and joy in their hearts strive? The word 'build' used here is originally the Greek word 'oiko dome', but oiko means 'home, house', and dome (domeo) means 'build'. . Therefore, our edification to our neighbor is the same as building our neighbor's house. You have to do something that builds other people's lives. Please do not let the cause of God be ruined by trivial things like food. Please do not undermine God's work by tradition, system, or method (verse 20).
Therefore, the important thing is not to decide whose opinion is right or wrong, but it should be about setting up one brother right (verse 21). But in times like these, we must always do it by faith (verse 22). Those who have this kind of belief are blessed and free. Because such a person does not live for himself, but for the Lord. No matter what you do, because the standard of your life is the Lord, you have the confidence to always live right. Last week, in Romans 14:7, how did we Christians say we should live? The standard of life should be someone else, not me, and the goal of life should be to live for the Lord and for the glory of God. If you depart from this, you are not doing it by faith. Whatever you eat or drink, do it for this purpose. If you do it with selfish greed, you will sin (verse 23).
The kingdom of God must be walked by faith. The kingdom of God is the kingdom of faith. The church is a community made up of faith. If you do not have faith, you cannot build the church that is the body of the Lord, nor can you build the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is a country where we go by faith, and at the same time, the kingdom of God is a country where we must live by faith. God's work must be done through faith. Living by faith must be proved by loving one's brother, and by the power of the Holy Spirit in oneself, living bearing the fruits of righteousness, peace, and joy. If you are truly builders of God's work, please raise up your brothers and sisters as disciples of Jesus with love. It must be done only by love, by the Holy Spirit, and by faith. Amen.
Ministry: Let's ask in the Holy Spirit for the kingdom of God to come in our field of life.