ARE WE PURSUING BUILDING OTHERS UP? - A STUDY ON ROMANS 14 PART 9 OF 11

  

Cross at The River Community Church, Cookeville, TN

If you look at lists of spiritual gifts, you'll find there's one of encouragement (exhortation). However, there is no spiritual gift of discouragement, nor one of criticism. This might be news to some people.

How does Paul describe the Kingdom of God? "For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." Romans 14:17, NKJV. Too often we get hung up either on enjoying the foods God created (see 1 Timothy 4:3-5) or on avoiding certain foods. But is either extreme what the Kingdom of God is? 

Consider "righteousness", "peace", and "joy" as equal parts of the Kingdom of God. Sometimes we focus on righteousness, and volunteer to be the one who assigns a definition to that word and usually nobody else has peace and joy. Others see righteousness as contrary forces, that you have to be miserable to be righteous. 

Peace is a quality that shows up again two verses later: "Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another." Romans 14:19, NKJV. Is peace and building others up things that we pursue? 

Those who make their convictions a mandate for others are not following this verse. They might think they are, just as a tyrant may think conquering another nation would bring peace. Unfortunately, one party defines and enforces the requirements for there to be peace, which is that everybody else sees things their way. They may believe that they're building others up by proclaiming what they consider to be "the truth", but actually they are

Likewise, those who don't think you should judge them and misuse Christian liberty for their not-necessarily-godly desires are not paying attention to Romans 14:19. In fact, they're not really different than the above group. They may not demand unconditional surrender, but they aren't willing to give anything up for peace either. Likewise, they are more apt to build themselves up (or more accurately puff themselves up) than to try to strengthen someone else.

What are we doing, individually and corporately, to pursue the things which make for peace or to edify one another?