A man approached a stop light and waited for the light to turn green behind a car with a woman in it. He noticed that she had her head down and was texting. When the light turned green, she continued to text all the way through until it turned red again. The man was furious! He honked, beat his steering wheel, yelled loud curses, and punched the air with his fists. Suddenly there was a rap of knuckles on his window. He looked out to find a police officer indicating that he should move his car over to the shoulder. He complied but argued vehemently that there was no law against yelling in your own car. The officer took his license and registration and went back to his vehicle to check things out. Finally he returned and told the man he was free to go. Aggravated, the man said, “See! I told you there was no law against yelling in your own car.” The officer responded, “Sir, that’s not why I pulled you over. I was behind you at the stop light. When I noticed the cross hanging from your mirror, the “Honk if you love Jesus” bumper sticker, and the Christian fish symbol affixed to your trunk, I pulled you over on suspicion of car theft. Surely, no real Christian would act the way you did!”

In our Scripture today we see Paul struggling with how to teach his congregants in Rome about how to act like Christians in a secular world. There was a lot of judging going on among them that threatened the health of the church. Paul wrote that such judging was inappropriate, because they weren’t each other’s masters and most of the issues came down to a matter of conscience. At issue was the controversy over eating meat that either wasn’t kosher, a wholly Jewish issue, or that had been sacrificed at a pagan altar and sold at market. Paul’s contention was that these matters belonged to God’s judgment and folks were called to accept one another’s “weaker” faith and quit arguing over things. He realized that as a whole, they all lacked good teaching on their new faith, and some were still trapped by the legalism of their past faith. 

Romans14:7 (Common English Bible)

⁷ We don’t live for ourselves and we don’t die for ourselves.

Being a Christian was counter to their previous culture. It was counter to the culture in Rome. Being a Christian meant no longer living for themselves anymore but living in connection with others for the sake of the Lord.

The same is true for us today. We live and die for Christ and serve as his ambassadors in between. Do your behaviors and values reflect Jesus’ teachings? We live in a culture that prioritizes celebrity, entitlement, selfishness, and greed over humble servanthood and obedience to God. You’re the only Jesus some will ever see. For heaven’s sake, act like it!

Follow His Light