Pursue Peace

Scripture Texts: Romans 14:13-23

Introduction.
The Apostle Paul is a pastor at heart. He is a shepherd who loves and cares for his sheep. So he is constantly teaching, instructing, admonishing, warning, and training in the way of the truth.
The Apostle Paul has not yet been to the church in Rome, but he already clearly loves them and is caring for them through this letter. It can be summed up in Romans 12:9, let your love be genuine, real, authentic, visible. Paul is writing out of love for the sake of peace and unity.
Chapter 14 is a lengthy call to love each other, and especially for the strong to love the weak.
We should pay attention to what Scripture pays attention to, especially when it devotes this much attention to it.
God sees what we need as a church so let’s pay attention. Let’s submit our hearts and minds and wills to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church this morning.
The church in Rome was filled with new converts to the Christian faith, some were former Jews and some were former Gentiles.
The Jews were coming out of very strict dietary laws about what was clean and unclean. The ancient world was full of pagan idolatry and temple worship where lots of animal were sacrificed to idols. The pagan temples were the local butcher shop; it was where you went to buy your meat. But these converts were having conscience issues with eating meat that was used in demonic idol worship. They were having a hard time letting go of all the trappings of their old ways. The Gentiles didn’t care.
This was a big deal in the early years of the church. Paul wrote about these same things to the Colossians and Corinthians.