What is the Kingdom of God? (Romans #23)

What is the kingdom of God?

Text: Romans 14

First is a warning about making things moral that aren’t matters of morality (vss 1-6)

Early on, people had a hard time defining what Christianity was. It was also difficult to define what eternal life was and what it looked like. Is it right or wrong to drink coffee? Drinking coffee isn’t a right or wrong question.
Food is not spiritual
- Peter was instructed in Acts 10:15, 28
- Paul talks about food again in 1 Corinthians 6:12-14
- Hebrews 13:7-9 the heart must be established with grace, not food
- Hebrews 9:8-10
- Paul says the forbidding of food as a matter of righteousness is a doctrine of devils in 1 Timothy 4:3
Holidays
- Colossians 2:16-17 says the important thing about the Jewish holidays was what they symbolized. Whether they are kept or not is not what’s important at this point.
- There is a movement that says true Christians don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter because they’re pagan holidays. It’s called the True Jesus Church. It has a couple million members and it is what Paul is warning against here. These are people who put stumbling blocks in the way of others by pretending these tests exist for God’s kingdom.
- The reality is that Christian doctrine is much more invasive than whether or not you celebrate a day. It digs at your heart. It pierces your motives and thoughts. Jesus Christ says if you’re doing the right thing for the wrong reason, you’re against God.

No one lives to themselves. This means if you want to be a Christian you have to learn to live at peace with people who want to follow Jesus Christ, but don’t practice Christianity the way you do.
Being right doesn’t look like celebrating the right holiday the right way or eating the right food the right way. Being right looks like you getting a grip on your sense of self-righteousness and learning to fellowship with people who love the LORD.
Peace is the kingdom of God as Paul will say. Your being right has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. You being a peacemaker does. See what Jesus said in Matthew 5:9? Paul is saying the same thing here.
Abraham Lincoln said, I don’t like that man. I must get to know him.

Verse 10 explains this well. If you’re judging someone’s service to Jesus Christ because of a holiday they celebrate or don’t celebrate or a food they eat or don’t eat you’re the one missing Christianity.
Proverbs 30:10
As a needed note here; Christ’s judgment seat is not what Scofield or Darby said it was, a judgment for Christians. Christ’s judgment here is tied to what Paul has already said in Romans 2:16 about all people being put under this judgment. Paul said it again to the Philippians that every knee would bow – that’s the same thing and it’s said in the next verse. The Father putting everything under Christ’s feet is this. The Son in his glory in Matthew 25 is all the same thing.
Verses 14-15 Paul explains that Christianity isn’t about setting up these kind of boundaries or stumblingblocks. Preaching to people who love the LORD that they’re fallen or have stumbled because they celebrated Christmas or Easter or Passover or Feast of Tabernacles. This is what the hypocrites like the Pharisees did.
Titus 1:15
This is what Peter and Barnabas got wrapped up in and Paul sharply rebuked them in Galatians for marginalizing Gentile believers because they weren’t practicing Judaism.
Here’s what the kingdom of God is. It’s peace and joy and righteousness in the Holy Ghost.

You’re not God’s police when it comes to your opinion about these things.
Happy is the man that lives by his conscience instructed by faith. Miserable is the man who thinks he’s God’s standard and divine law enforcement.
John 13:34-35 is a new commandment for the new covenant and it’s what Paul is saying in verse 19.
Do you have faith? Have it to God!