Life in God’s Kingdom

In Romans 14:13–23, Paul instructs us about life in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is where our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, rules his obedient subjects for their everlasting blessing and for God’s eternal glory. The unbelieving Jews refused to believe in their promised Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David, the Son of God. So Jesus told them, “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit” (Matt. 21:24). The fruit of the kingdom of God is obedience to the will of God, obedience to the Lord.

The Obedience of Faith

The kingdom of God consists of people who are characterized by the obedience of faith (Rom. 1:5). The people of God are born of the Holy Spirit. They have repented of their sins and confessed in saving faith that Jesus Christ is Lord. They have become bondslaves whose ears have been pierced by the master. In Deuteronomy 15:17 we read that if a master wants to set his slave free, but the slave refuses to go, saying, “I love my master. I don’t want to go. I want to be your slave for life,” then the master is to take an awl and push it through the slave’s earlobe into the door. He is to do the same for his maidservant. The slaves will become his servants for life.

These slaves of Christ are known for their undying love for their Master who died to save them from their sins. The people of the kingdom of God are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. They are taught in the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has poured out in their hearts love in abundance so that they can fulfill the law of love, that is, to love the Lord “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). That is the law of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The kingdom of God is where the fruit of the Holy Spirit—”love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23) grows in plenty. Do you have discipline? Do you have self-control? Self-control is the Holy Spirit controlling one’s life. It means that in our going and coming and eating and drinking, in our work, and all aspects of life, we are controlled by the Holy Spirit of God.

The kingdom of God is where God’s power manifests in the task of witness-bearing to the saving work of Jesus Christ to the whole world. The church is God’s family, and in the church there are children, fathers, mothers, young people and old. In God’s family, there are weak people, strong people, and sick people. There are those who will eat only what grows in the ground, and there are those who eat meat and drink wine. But there is no problem; everyone walks together in love, faith, wisdom, light, and in the Holy Spirit. Those who are strong care for the weak, loving them, bearing with them, and teaching them until they grow up to maturity.

The strong are not to cause the weak to stumble and fall. They are not to distress them or cause them to grieve by wounding their weak consciences. Yes, the strong are correct in their understanding that Christ has abrogated the ceremonial laws and therefore a Christian is free to enjoy maximum freedom in this non-essential matter of eating and drinking. Yet life in God’s kingdom calls for the strong to act in love toward their weak brothers. The weak are not free to eat meat offered to idols and sold in the marketplace. They believe that meat offered to idols is therefore impure. They do not yet know that all food is clean and pure because God created all things, and thanksgiving to God sanctifies the food.

Evil is in the human heart (Matt. 15:19). So Paul said, “To the pure, all things are pure” (Tit. 1:15). But certain foods are unclean and impure only to weak believers who consider them so because of their lack of understanding. So it would be wrong for the strong to eat meat and drink wine in the presence of a weak brother. They should not cause their brothers to stumble and fall. They should not grieve, destroy, or tear down their weak brothers, who are also God’s children. Though weak in their consciences now, they are made living stones and are part of the rising temple of God in which God himself dwells by his Spirit.

Weak brothers are weak in their consciences and lack certain knowledge about food and drink. But God loved them, and God’s Son died to save them. If Christ loved them and died for their salvation, the strong brothers and sisters ought also to love them and make a small sacrifice with reference to food and drink.

Righteousness, Peace, and Joy

The kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink. In other words, it is not a physical thing. Rather, it is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God is spiritual. The church is spiritual, having to do with the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, no one is part of the kingdom of God and of God’s church unless that person is born of the Holy Spirit. The Father seeks such people who worship him in spirit and in truth.

The kingdom of God is righteousness. This speaks about our ethical behavior. Righteousness means doing what is right. As people of God who have been justified by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, we live a righteous life. We are saved to serve the Lord in righteousness. The subjects of the kingdom of God do not practice anomia, lawlessness. That is why, when we see a person in the church practicing lawlessness, we may conclude that he is not born of God. On the last day the Lord will say to such people, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity!” (Matt. 7:23).

The people of the kingdom of God keep God’s moral law by the power of the Holy Spirit. A believer may have been a thief, but he is no longer; now he works and gives to the needy. Another may have been a drunkard, but he is no longer. He has become the new John.¹

Thieves, drunkards and adulterers are not citizens of the kingdom of God. Paul writes, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9–11). Believers in Christ have been made alive by the Holy Spirit. They are given a new heart, a new mind, a new will, and new affections. They are citizens of the kingdom of God, and therefore members of God’s church. They are God’s new creations, created in Christ to kingdom obedience. Believers do righteousness. They obey God’s moral law.

God’s moral law says, “Do what is right and good in the LORD’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers” (Deut. 6:18). “What is right and good in the Lord’s sight” means what is revealed to us in the Scriptures. We also read, “And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?” (Deut. 10:12-13). Micah declares, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic. 6:8).

To those who do not obey God’s moral law, Jesus himself said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” (Matt. 23:23). He could say this to many pastors in this country, who do not counsel according to God’s word and do not address people’s sin, including the sin of their own children. Jesus continued, “You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

Life in God’s kingdom is also peace. Believers live in harmony toward one another. By nature we were enemies of God and of one another. Now because of Christ’s peace-making and enmity-destroying death on the cross, we live in peace with God’s people, whether weak or strong. Paul writes, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit” (Eph. 2:14–18). Christ made peace, so we live in peace toward God and toward one another.

Life in the kingdom of God is also joy, which is created in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. So we rejoice even in tribulations. When Paul and Silas had been beaten and put in prison in chains in Philippi, at midnight the Holy Spirit enabled them to pray and sing hymns to God. Later, Paul wrote from his prison in Rome, exhorting the Philippian church, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4).

This is kingdom life. Citizens of the kingdom of God, members of God’s holy church, are counseled by the apostle who himself is a strong believer that all believers, weak and strong, must serve Christ in terms of the life of the kingdom of God (Rom. 14:18). Food and drink are trivialities. They are not the kingdom of God. So Paul said, “Food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do… . Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall” (1 Cor. 8:8, 13). And in Romans 14 Paul writes, “It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall” (v. 21).

Friends, live the life of the kingdom of God! Practice righteousness. What is righteousness? Doing what is right. Doing what God has told us. Doing what your father says. Doing what your pastor says. Doing what your teacher or boss says, without arguing or complaining. When we see someone arguing and complaining, we know the person does not have the Holy Spirit. Such a person does not have grace. Such a person is arrogant; he has never bent his knees before God and asked God to give him grace.

Walk in Love

So live the life of the kingdom of God. Practice righteousness, live in peace, and rejoice in the Holy Spirit. Walk in the love of God. Jesus told us, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are [Christians], if you love one another” (John 13:34-35)

Paul writes, “Nobody should seek his own good but the good of others” (1 Cor. 10:24). Self-seeking is the old, former life, the old John. He also says, “[Love] is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Cor. 13:5).

When we walk in love, we will seek the welfare of the weak at our own expense. The strong sacrifices for the weak. The strong lives to please God and to please the weak. The one who serves Christ in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit is pleasing to God and approved by men. In the kingdom of God, Christ rules his people. (PGM) So we read, “For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might rule [says the Greek text] both the dead and the living [saints of God]” (Rom. 14:9).

Some people do not like being ruled by Christ. In fact, they don’t like anyone telling them what to do. They say, “We are free and independent people. We do what we want.” If we say such things, we do not belong to the kingdom of God.

Jesus Christ rules his people, and we are his very obedient slaves. The Epistle to the Romans begins with these words: Paulos doulos Christou Iêsou – “Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus” (Rom. 1:1). If Paul was a slave of Christ, so are we. Our will is the will of Christ, our minds are to think the thoughts of Christ, and our affections are to love what Christ himself loves.

Paul says, “If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Rom. 14:8). We are not to live to our advantage, to our own glory or to our own fame. We are to live to the Lord and to his glory. So when we walk in love toward our weak brothers, we are living for God’s glory. We seek not to please ourselves; we live to please God and his people.

Why do people divorce? They cannot get along. If husbands love and serve their wives, and wives are to submit to and serve their husbands, they will not divorce. They will see the fruit of the Spirit in their lives, such as love, joy, peace, and so on. When people insist on their own way, then there will be divorce.

We are servants of Christ and of his people. When we walk in love, we do not insist on our ways of doing things. We do not major in food and drink. We major in weightier matters of the kingdom of God— righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Paul lived in love toward his weak brothers without grieving them, without putting stumbling blocks before them, without destroying them and without tearing down the work of God. He did not live to please himself. Let us then look at how Paul lived. He wrote, “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings” (1 Cor. 9:19–23). Elsewhere he says, ” Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God — even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved” (1 Cor. 10:32-33). Then he says, ” Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1).

When we live the life of the kingdom of God, when we live in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, we will pursue with a passion ways of building up our brothers and sisters, especially those who are weak. They need edification.

Friends, we need to love our brothers and refuse to please ourselves. So we must limit the enjoyment of our own freedom. We have freedom, but we also have the freedom to limit our freedom. The weak brother doesn’t have the freedom. He can only eat vegetables.

We must also pray for the spiritual growth of our weak brothers. We teach the word of God to our weak brothers so that they gain greater knowledge of the Scriptures and grow strong in their convictions, so that they can enjoy maximum Christian liberty with consciences governed by the Scriptures. We refuse to follow Jiminy Cricket’s rule: “Always let your conscience be your guide.” It sounds good but it is wrong. We follow Martin Luther’s rule: “My conscience is held captive to the word of God. To go against it is neither right nor safe.”

Why can we not just let our conscience be our guide? Because one’s conscience can be weak, defiled, corrupt, good, dead, or seared. Those who enjoy cannibalism have no problem with their conscience; they are doing what they think is right. The conscience of a Christian can be weak or strong. Our conscience must be adjusted by the word of God, which alone is our authority. Yet a Christian must not violate his conscience and sin. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:23). We must constantly study the Scriptures so that our conscience will adjust itself to the teaching of God’s word. That is why in this church we preach and teach and counsel all based on what the Scripture is saying.

The apostle is not asking the strong to become weak and be like their weak brothers, eating only vegetables. The strong are correct in their understanding, and Paul stands with them. The strong must not abandon their convictions. But they also must not cause their weak brothers to stumble. Paul calls the strong makarios, blessed: “Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves” (Rom. 14:22). He does not so address the weak.

The weak are not to demand all other believers to be like them. That is what some people do. They say, “If you really love me, you should be a vegetarian.” They want to tyrannize others. The weak must grow strong, and not the strong weak, according to this passage. Blessed is the man who can enjoy all the freedoms Christ has achieved for him. Yet it is important to subordinate the matters of our stomach to the spiritual, eternal matters of the kingdom of God.

Let us live in unity in God’s church. How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters, when husband and wife, when parents and children, when brothers and sisters, live together in unity, in love, peace, righteousness, joy, for there, and only there, the Lord of the church bestows his blessing, even life forevermore (see Ps. 133:1-3).

So let us not judge, despise, cause to stumble, grieve, destroy or tear down the work of God. Paul writes, “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:17). If you destroy God’s church in any way, be warned: Jesus Christ himself will destroy you.

We are all God’s family—believers all over the world. We are all related to God our Father, Jesus Christ our Lord and older brother, and we are related to one another, whether weak or strong. So let us walk in love as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Let us live the life of the kingdom of God, living a righteous life, a life of spiritual harmony and joy in the Holy Spirit. Let us be obedient citizens of Christ’s kingdom, serving Christ and pleasing our Father. Let us daily pursue with all our strength the things that promote peace in the family and edification in the body of Christ. Christ is building his church. Let us build with him. Paul says, “For we are God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor. 3:9). Isn’t that a wonderful dignity God has given us? In other words, Christ himself said, “I will build my church,” but he utilizes us also to work with him. There is no greater dignity than that! So Paul continues, “We are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” And we read, “As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain” (2 Cor. 6:1). What dignity! We are called to work with Jesus Christ in the building of the kingdom of God.

In Judges 5:23 we read an interesting phrase: “Curse Meroz,’ said the angel of the LORD. ‘Curse its people bitterly, because they did not come to help the LORD, to help the LORD against the mighty.” To help the Lord! Thank God for this great call to help the Lord in the work that he is doing, which is, “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Let us, therefore, receive into our hearts all those whom God has received to himself. We refuse to discriminate. We don’t have “color guards” outside the church, watching those who come to church. When they see someone who differs from them racially or ethnically, they encourage them to go to a different church where they will feel more “comfortable.” That is not in accordance with the teaching of this text. Let us receive all for whom Christ died. Let us receive all who are born of God and who already, without our permission, have entered into the kingdom of God.

Let us, as Paul said, give “thanks to the Father, who has qualified [us] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of our sins” (Col. 1:12-13). Thank God for what God has done on the basis of his own initiative. He came and sought us and found us—rebels, who were under the wrath of God, prodigals. He found us—the Zacchaeuses, the prostitutes, the Mary Magdalenes, from whom he drove out seven demons, and other demoniacs, such as the one from whom he drove out a legion of demons. It is amazing what God has done for us!

Therefore, let us embrace each other. Let us love one another. How pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity, for there God has bestowed a blessing, even life forevermore.

¹ P. G. Mathew, Romans 1–8: The Gospel Freedom (Davis, CA: Grace and Glory, 2011), 377 (see also http://www.gracevalley.org/sermon_trans/2009/Steps_to_Holiness_4.html).