The Kingdom is Not a Matter of Food or Drink

The Kingdom of God Is Righteousness, Peace, and Joy, Not Human Rules

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. In the name of.

Jesus, Amen. Hear the words of the Apostle Paul from Romans chapter 14, verse 17. The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Now as we work through our gospel text today and the cross-references that relate to it, it's important for us to remember that the context here is about a group of people, the Pharisees, who had created commandments of men.

Commandments that were not commanded by God and they were teaching them as doctrines and binding people's consciences regarding that. And Jesus shows that their man-made commandments and their rituals were dead and that they were hypocrites, the people who were following them.

And so we're dealing still with the topic of hypocrisy and self-righteousness and man-made commandments. This is going to require me to talk about what Scripture teaches regarding food and drink, and particularly we'll talk about alcohol in that context.

And I want to make this very clear up front that I am not advocating that somebody must drink alcohol. But Scripture clearly teaches that you have the freedom to either drink or not drink. And we will be dealing with the fact that there are people within Christendom who literally create commandments of men to bind Christians' consciences and say that if you are a Christian, you cannot eat certain things and you cannot drink certain things.

These are man-made doctrines. The Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. So I have found from my own personal experience that when groups of Christians gather around and create these man-made doctrines, just like the Pharisees of Jesus' time, these man-made commandments mask blatant unbelief and hypocrisy.

And so we're going to deal with this topic straight up, so you need to understand that's where we're going. So if you'll turn with me to our Gospel text, this is where we'll begin. In Mark 7, 14, it says.

This,.

Let me say that again. These are Jesus' words. If you have a Red Letter Bible, you'll note these words are in red. But the things that come out of a person are what defile him. It's not what goes in, what comes out.

And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. But Jesus wasn't speaking in parables. He was just speaking plainly, stating it the way it is. And so Jesus said to them,.

Then are you also without understanding? Because Jesus notes that he wasn't talking parabolically. So he clarifies. Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and then is expelled?

Thus he declared, All foods clean. If there's nothing from outside of you that goes into you that can defile you, that's going to include bacon, lobster, fine wines, good craft beers, and things of this nature.

This is exactly what Jesus is saying. These do not defile a person. What defiles a person is that sin that comes up and burbles up from inside of you. Now, this is a theme that's actually teased out very specifically in Scripture.

Self-Made Religion in Colossians and the Nazarene Manual

In Colossians chapter 2, starting at verse 20, the Apostle Paul, after so beautifully giving us this picture of the Gospel, that there's this record of debt that stood against us because of our sin, that Christ has literally taken that and written across it, debt paid in full, and nailed that record of debt to the cross.

That we are totally forgiven in Christ by grace, through faith. He then goes on and gives some of the therefores of the Gospel in that exact same chapter, and here's what he says. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still living in the world, do you submit to regulations?

Here are these regulations. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used or consumed. According to human precepts and teachings. These indeed have an appearance of wisdom, and that's only what it is, an appearance of wisdom, in promoting, and listen to the words, self-made religion.

Christianity is not about do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. And so the Apostle Paul is saying, if you've died with Christ, why are you going back to this kind of stuff? This has indeed an appearance of wisdom in the promoting of self-made religion and asceticism, and the severity to the body.

And listen to these words, they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So, Scripture is clear. If you're coming up with blue laws, adding commandments to Scripture, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, this is in the category of self-made religion.

And that's exactly what Jesus is talking about in the context of our Gospel text. The Pharisees had a self-made religion. They were teaching as commands the doctrines of men, and they were hypocritical, and they were, well, to use the word Pharisaical, self-righteous, and their religion is self-made.

Paul picks up on this in Colossians and drives that point home as well. Now, I've told my story in more detail recently in a Sunday School class. It's on our website if you want to hear it. But I spent some time in the Nazarene Church, and I'm going to give you an example of what this looks like from that denomination, only because I'm very intimately familiar with that experience.

And I have to say that the stifling moralism and self-made religion and the self-made human commands that were imposed on me as a young man nearly turned me into an atheist. We must be satisfied with the standard that God has given us.

And so I've kept my Nazarene manual and went back to it in preparation for this sermon. And I would like to read out just a few portions of this, because I want you to see that this is a sect within Christianity that doesn't permit dancing, doesn't permit drinking, doesn't permit the use of tobacco of any kind, and in their manual under the section titled, The Covenant of Christian Conduct, that's an interesting title, by the way, Covenant of Christian Conduct.

This is a different covenant than the New Covenant, but this is fascinating. Listen to what they write regarding the Christian life. The church joyfully proclaims, the Nazarenes write, the good news that we may be delivered from all sin to a new life in Christ.

Notice the subjunctive mood of that sentence. We may be delivered from all sin to a new life in Christ? I thought the good news was that Christ died for our sins. And so already we're off on the bad foot.

By the grace of God, we Christians are to put off the old self, the old patterns of conduct, as well as the old carnal mind, and we are to put on the new self as a new and holy way of life, as well as the mind of Christ.

This portion is true. This is exactly what Ephesians 4 teaches. This is by, well, truly a proper definition of sanctification. But then it gets a little bit weird. Next paragraph. It is further recognized that there is validity in the concept of the collective Christian conscience as illuminated and guided by the Holy Spirit.

The Nazarenes believe that the church universal, that there is supposedly a collective Christian conscience that we all are to be paying attention to. And the church of the Nazarene, as an international expression of the body of Christ, acknowledges its responsibility to seek ways to particularize the Christian life so as to lead to a holiness ethic.

The historical ethical standards of the church are expressed in part in the following items, and they should be followed carefully and conscientiously as guides and helps to holy living. Those who violate the conscience of the church, notice it doesn't say violate their own consciences.

This collective Christian conscience is what decides what we can and cannot do in the Nazarene church. So the one who violates the conscience of the church, they do so at their own peril and to the hurt of the witness of the church.

And we'll already note that they have invented, this is a self-made religious doctrine, a doctrine of men, the doctrine known as the collective Christian conscience. Search scripture from Genesis to the Book of Maps and you will find nothing written, ever, or revealed regarding the binding nature of the collective Christian conscience.

Yet this is a vital part of their ethic. So then, playing this all out then in our practical lives, in the section titled, Entertainments that are Subversive to the Christian Ethic, the Nazarene manual states, our people, both as Christian individuals and in Christian family units, should govern themselves by three principles.

Notice it doesn't turn people to the Ten Commandments. Instead, we must be governed by three principles. And all of this comes from the collective Christian conscience. Principle number one is the Christian stewardship of leisure time.

A second principle is the recognition of the Christian obligation to apply the highest moral standards of Christian living. And then the third principle is the obligation to witness against whatever trivializes or blasphemes God.

This then necessitates the teaching and preaching of these moral standards of Christian living and that our people be taught to use prayerful discernment in continually choosing the high road of holy living.

We suggest the standard then given to John Wesley by his mother. I'm not making this up. John Wesley's mom actually is setting the standard by which Nazarenes must follow, and here it is, that quote, whatever weakens your reason impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God or takes off the relish of spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of your body over the mind, that thing for you then is sin.

This then forms the basis for this teaching of discrimination. So now we've got a problem. Sanctification in the Nazarene Church is guided by the collective Christian conscience and John Wesley's mom's, his or her standard for deciding what is and isn't sin.

Now, knowing that, can any of you tell me what is sinful and what is not sinful? What we can or what we cannot do? We've come out of the world of the biblically objective moral standards set out by God and are now into the nebulous vague moving target of holiness as dictated by the collective Christian conscience and John Wesley's mommy.

This is a problem. So then getting to specific things then, they write all forms of dancing then are forbidden because they break down proper moral inhibitions and reserve. Dancing out. Yet I can point you to scriptures where dancing is not only encouraged, dancing was actually done in the very presence of God.

We've got a problem. They further say the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage or trafficking therein giving influence to or voting for the licensing of places for the sale of the same using illicit drugs or trafficking therein the use of tobacco in any of its forms or trafficking in light of the holy scriptures which they cite, they quote none of them here, and human experience concerning the ruinous consequences of the use of alcohol as a beverage and in light of the findings of medical science regarding the detrimental effect of both alcohol and tobacco to the body and the mind as a community of faith committed to the pursuit of a holy life, our position and practice is abstinence rather than moderation.

Holy Scripture teaches that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit with loving regard for ourselves and others and we call our people to total abstinence from all intoxicants. Furthermore, our Christian social responsibility calls us to use any legitimate and legal means to minimize the availability of both beverage alcohol and tobacco to others.

The widespread incidence of alcohol abuse in our world demands that we embody a position that stands as a witness to others and only unfermented wine should be used in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

Hmm. I hate to say this but the Nazarenes with their man-made doctrines have made themselves holier than Jesus. And that's the problem. And I want you to consider that this argument is not a biblical argument.

Let me explain. It is undeniable that there are some who have become alcoholics or addicted to adult beverages and for them there is no freedom now to be able to engage in drinking alcohol of any kind because that freedom has been taken away by a change in their biochemistry.

Even a small amount of alcohol will set them on a bender for weeks and days. And so for them there is no freedom. Now this is absolutely true and drunkenness is expressly forbidden by God in the Old and the New Testament.

There's no doubt about this. But using this argument of theirs we can say that because people have abused alcohol therefore we can't have any alcohol. We should then say, well because there's so much pornography in the world and on the internet and there's human trafficking going on and people are abusing others sexually in order to be a light to the world we must now forego sexual intercourse even in a God-ordained marriage as a witness to the world.

Using that same logic we must come to the same conclusion. But you'll know we are way, way off the biblical track and that's the problem. These are man-made standards. These are man-made commandments and doctrines.

These are not the doctrines of God. We must embrace the standard, the objective, clear standard of scripture. And so for this I'd like to consider some passages along with me. In Romans chapter 4 verse 15, if you just want to make a note of it, Paul says this and this is a very important text.

The law brings wrath. And listen to these words. Where there is no law, there is no transgression. For instance I like to play disc golf. Nowhere in scripture is disc golf forbidden by God. Therefore I in good conscience can take a Sunday afternoon head to Lincoln Park and I can play 18 holes of disc golf without any pangs of conscience or guilt whatsoever.

Now somebody might argue using the collective Christian conscience that that's a frivolous endeavor and a waste of time and you should be studying your Bible. But where there is no law, there is no transgression.

We must keep that in mind. Now Deuteronomy 14 and I do want you to turn there with me. Deuteronomy 14 starting at verse 22. This is going to be a lesser known doctrine regarding the tithe. Think of it this way.

I don't know if you knew this but God expected that when you brought the tithe to him at the temple or the tabernacle that you would partake and enjoy part of that tithe. It's actually in the scriptures and we're going to note some of the details.

Here's what it says. Deuteronomy 14 .22 You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year and before Yahweh your God in the place that he will choose to make his name to dwell there.

This eventually becomes the temple in Jerusalem but remember at the time this was written the tabernacle was set up as a movable temple if you would and so it would move from place to place. You shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine Hebrew there is quite specific.

Tinash, that is wine. This is a fermented drink that we're all familiar with that comes from grapes and of your oil and of your firstborn of your herd and flock that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

And if the way is too long for you so that you are not able to carry the tithe when Yahweh your God blesses you because the place is too far from you which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there then you shall turn it into money, bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire.

Now listen, so the idea is I got a long journey and carrying all of this stuff with me is a little too tight, a little difficult so I'm going to turn it into money, sell it, take the money with me. When I arrive in Jerusalem then I'm to go and use that money to purchase.

So then purchase whatever you desire, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink. Strong drink is distilled spirits. Whatever your appetite craves. Now, if having alcohol was sinful in and of itself, not only would Jesus be lying that nothing outside of you coming into you defiles you that also God here is commanding the people of Israel to sin.

That doesn't make any sense. So purchase wine, strong drink, whatever your appetite craves and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice. In other words, yeah, alcohol becomes part of the rejoicing part of the actual worship of God with your tithe in Jerusalem.

For you and your household and you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns for he has no portion or inheritance with you. Matthew chapter 11, doing a little hopscotching around today. Matthew chapter 11, we'll note this Jesus is talking about himself as well as John the Baptist.

It's important to note that John the Baptist was under a Nazarite vow at the time of his incubation within his mom's womb. So he's been a Nazarite from the womb. And so he never actually ever had alcohol.

But the Pharisees being the slanderers that they are, they slandered John the Baptist and they slandered Jesus. And note what Jesus says here. Verse 16, Matthew 11. What shall I compare this generation?

Well, it's like children sitting in the marketplace and calling their playmates. We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a jurge and you did not mourn. John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking.

That's right, he had locusts, which is a weird diet I'm just saying. Neither eating nor drinking. And they say he has a demon. There's the slander of the Pharisees. But the son of man, Jesus referring to himself, came both eating and drinking and they say of Jesus, look at him.

He's a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. Jesus drank. He was slanderously accused of being a drunkard and a glutton. But he was neither because Jesus never once sinned.

Nothing coming from outside of a man going into a man defiles him, Jesus says. The word is nothing. Not bacon, not lobster, not wine, not beer, not gin, and we'll throw dancing in too just to be helpful here because you can see all of that.

Back to our gospel text. Verse 18 again. Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him? It enters not his heart but his stomach and then is expelled. He said this. It is what comes out of a person.

That is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts. And watch the list. Sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting. Huh. That sounds a lot like the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th commands kind of all in there.

And you'll note Jesus is referring us back to the Ten Commandments. Also wickedness, deceit, sensuality, slander. Oh yeah, that's a big one. Pride, foolishness. All of these vile things come from within and they are what defile a person.

You see the difference? Jesus is appealing back to the actual objective moral standard of God. The Pharisees and people like them make up their own rules and expect you to keep them as if they come from God.

But Paul is clear. This is self-made religion. So you are following a self-made religion and you are also a hypocrite according to Jesus. If you think that you are holy because you haven't quote unquote defiled yourself with bacon, booze, sugary treats, trans fat, lobster, and other things like this, while excusing yourself for actually despising the hearing of God's word, dishonoring your parents and those whom God has put in authority in their proper offices, you do not protect your neighbor in his bodily needs and possessions.

You despise God and your spouse by feeding the lusts of your sinful flesh. You gossip and slander against your neighbor and you weaponize personal information in order to destroy their reputations. You are scheming against your neighbor in your coveting of their possessions, of their power, of their talents, of their beauty, of their authority and you aggrandize yourself at their expense.

Do you not see that by doing these things, which all began in your sinful hearts, you have utterly defiled yourself and transgressed God's holy law? And do you think for one second that this defilement can be erased or ignored by God or explained away at the judgment seat of Christ by telling him, yeah, but I never once let tobacco touch my lips.

That ain't gonna fly. This self-made, pharisaical religion cannot save you. And the epicenter of this self-made religion is not a love for God, it instead is a complete rebellious hatred of him. The one who self-fashions a religion of this kind does not fear God, does not love and trust God above all things, despite all their claims to the opposite.

The one who fashions or self-fashions a religion of this kind thinks that they know better than God and they end up railing against the righteousness of faith and all of God's gifts that are given in the absolution, the preached word, the sacraments, and they instead seek to limit these, demean them, undermine them, and replace them.

There's a word for this type of self-made religion and that word is idolatry. Because that's what this is. Idolatry is a breaking of the first commandment that says you will have no other gods before me.

And all self-made religion with their false worship, false law, false precepts, false gospel cannot save even one person. Idolatry is the defilement of such a magnitude that it earns one a spot in the hottest regions of the lake of fire.

Adherents of this kind of self-made religion are so deluded that they think their personal holiness shines with the brightness of the sun all the while they are covered in the defilement of the manure of idolatry.

Christ's words to the church of Laodicea are fitting in this context. He writes to them in Revelation 3, you say I'm rich, I've prospered, I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich and have white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen. And salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

Those whom I love I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. And it is my personal experience because I have been one of these Pharisees that those who think that they are righteous because they don't go to certain movies, don't eat particular foods, don't drink particular drinks, or don't use alcohol or tobacco or whatever, that they are so deluded that they are righteous but at the same time they literally mistreat everybody.

They are the most unloving, unkind people on the planet. And I was one of them. Scripture says this, Luke 18, kind of the distinction between true Christianity and the self-made religion of man-made commandments that veils hypocrisy.

It says this in Luke 18 verse 9, Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and they treated others with contempt because that's what the self-righteous do. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

And we know how this story is supposed to go. Pharisees are religious, they love God. Tax collectors are complete louts. These are parasites who have turned against their own people and are making themselves wealthy on the backs of their countrymen.

So the Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, and boy this is a great prayer. I thank you God that I'm not like other men. Extortioners, the unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get, oh aren't you special.

And that's the prayer of the self-righteous. And notice the contempt that he has for that man who is there in the temple to pray. And God hears both their prayers. In fact, the way Jesus tells this story, it's almost as if this actually really happened.

They call it a parable, but man Jesus being God in human flesh, he hears prayers. Makes you wonder, is this historical narrative that we're reading here? But there's the tax collector, God's law having destroyed him, and rightfully so, because the objective standard says, thou shalt not steal.

And this man in his greed has stolen and ingratiated himself on the money of others, taking advantage of the loose tax system that the Romans had set up. And God's holy law that says, thou shalt not steal, has pierced him to his heart, and he realizes that he is as guilty as all get out.

He recognizes his filth, his defilement that has come from within him. And he prays thus. He couldn't even lift his eyes to heaven and he was standing far off, as far away as you can be from the presence of God and still be in the courts.

And he said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And now you see the difference. Self-made religion teaches you to say lies about yourself. Self-made religion teaches you to say, I am holy. I am strong.

I am rich. I am the head. I'm not the tail. I'm the bee's knees. I'm the apple of God's eye. And you sound just like Satan. But God's law teaches us to say the right things about ourselves, the truth about ourselves.

We are not holy in and of ourselves. We are not righteous. We are unrighteous and ungodly. And God's law teaches us to say the truth about ourselves, that we are sinners. And Jesus says of this tax collector, this man went down to his house justified, declared righteous by God himself rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

And see, that's the dirty little game that the self-righteous play in their self-made religion. They ignore the real law of God and set up their own standard because that standard that they've set up, they can keep that.

And they ignore the other and denigrate it and let it just kind of fall into disuse. I'm holy because I keep these things. No, you're not. You're looking at the wrong list. You made that one up. Put it away.

You need to look at the real list. But remember what Scripture says in this regard. Because each and every one of us, we are guilty in one degree or another of this filth and defilement of self-righteousness, of idolatrously creating our own standards and then demeaning everybody who doesn't live up to our standards rather than recognizing the objective one that is given to us in Scripture.

And when we recognize that, we realize just how wretched, poor, pitiable, naked, and blind we really are. And so Christ, in the words of the church of Laodicea, said to repent. So we remember then these comforting words from 2 Corinthians 5.

God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. This idolatry Christ has bled and died for. Romans 5 puts it this way. You see, while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

One will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, how much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life?

And more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Put away the self-made religion. Put away the self-made commandments. They are all basically veils for hypocrisy.

Recognize that God's law condemns us all and that sin doesn't occur because something outside of you has come from within your body. Sin occurs because your sinful, wicked heart has produced in you all kinds of defiling sins, like adultery, murder, coveting, slander, theft.

These are what defile us. The only solution to that problem is the one given to us in Scripture. And the solution to that is not try harder, do gooder, be better, or try to live holier. The solution is to recognize you've fallen way short and ask God to have mercy.

And in Christ He promises to forgive. He promises to cleanse and remove that defilement. In Christ that idolatry and all of the defilements that we are guilty of have been put on Christ. And He is the one who is pierced for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, so that we might not suffer those stripes that we have earned because of our rebellion, and so that we can be forgiven, pardoned, and made whole in Christ.

This is why we then bear fruit in keeping with repentance and do not turn sanctification into the means by which we are justified, which is what the self-righteous do. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. And again that address is Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. We thank you for your support. All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.

And again, thank you for listening.