I
don’t know about you, but I really look forward to our
times together here at Calvary
Chapel. Sunday worship is the high point of my week. But it hasn’t
always been. In fact, when I was growing up, I very seldom went to church
because I didn’t enjoy going to church very much. Why the difference
today?
The main reason
of course was that I didn’t get saved until I was in my late 20’s.
But
even so, the churches I attended while growing up left a lot to be desired,
at least for me.
There wasn’t much in the music to attract a teenager. The pews
were very hard, which
only made it harder to listen to the really boring sermons, which all
contained the same
content week after week.
But the main thing
we have today that we didn’t enjoy back then, now I know some of
you young people are going to roll your eyes, but when I was your age,
there was very
little preaching about the subject of our freedom in Christ. I believe
the church of today
has a far better understanding of what it means to be free than when
I was your age.
Churches in those
days were caught up in a lot of legalism, a performance Christianity,
you might call it. There seemed to be an emphasis on teaching that you
had to do better
and be better in order to please God and keep him off your case. Many
Christians in those days spent a lot of time and energy emphasizing
what we shouldn’t do and criticizing those who did.
Now that may not
have been all bad, at least not the first part. In those days, you didn’t
see many unwed mothers in the church. There were very few divorces.
And not many of
the kids who went to church were into drugs. The downside, unfortunately,
was that a lot
of kids who were raised in church walked away from their faith when
they went off to
college. As they experienced the things of the world, things they were
forbidden to do by
the church, they were pulled into Satan’s deceptive trap. So the
success rate was mixed.
Now when I suggest
to you that the church has learned a lot about freedom since those
days, doesn’t mean that our life-style should have changed that
much. It’s just that the
church has relaxed its views on many gray areas that were once considered
to be taboo.
Not many churches today would condemn you for playing cards. Nor would
they forbid
you from teaching Sunday school if you do go to the movies. You won’t
find many
preachers who preach that smoking or social drinking or wearing women
wearing makeup
or pants to a worship service is a sin. And if you have what it takes
to be a good dancer, I
don’t see anything wrong with taking your wife out dancing.
But on the other
hand freedom in Christ is not a get out of jail free card that allows
you to do a whole lot of things now that you weren’t allowed to
do as a kid. To me freedom is a state of mind that looks for what’s
permitted instead of what’s off limits.
Just as God put
thousands of trees in the Garden of Eden and restricted access to only
one, so he has set endless possibilities before us and very few restrictions.
To focus on the restrictions, and then to make up additional ones, which
is what legalists always do, is such a sad waste of time. I want to
focus on the freedom I have to become all God created me to be. Of course,
freedom is never absolute.
Throughout our
history, the United States, perhaps the freest country in the history
of the world, has generally recognized that liberty carries with it
responsibility. Freedom of
speech does not include the right to slander or libel. Freedom of assembly
does not entail
the right to riot. Freedom to bear arms does not mean one has the right
to shoot at
someone else.
So too, the freedom
we have in Christ is not absolute. It is a precious jewel, a commodity
to be used and enjoyed. But we must always consider how our exercise
of freedom will impact the lives of others, believers and unbelievers
alike.
In chapters 8-10
Paul’s overall subject has been Christian liberty. He is delighted
that the believers in Corinth are enjoying their freedoms, but he is
concerned that some have been using them selfishly. This concluding
section summarizes, and drives home, some key principles on Christian
freedom. The passage opens with this principle: Christians are free!--v.
23.
These first 3 words
carry one of the fundamental messages of the New Testament: Jesus
Christ has set us free from having to keep the letter of the law to
have a relationship with
God. This is a truth that Paul loved to proclaim. Repeatedly, in the
past 4 chapters he has
told the believers in Corinth that everything is permissible.
Apparently this
was very possibly a popular slogan in the Corinthian Church. It was
a
slogan which Paul not only affirmed it but may have actually been the
originator of it. I
can imagine him saying, “Friends, quit worrying every moment that
you might mess up.
Don’t live your life always glancing behind you to see if the Celestial
Cop is coming after
you with his lights on. Jesus has set you free! Therefore, everything
is permissible.” He
meant, of course, that we are free to do anything not expressly forbidden
in the
Bible.
That in itself
was a radical idea, especially to the Jews. They were used to the Pharisees
adding endless rules and regulations to the gracious laws God laid down
in the Old
Testament. They seemingly took the attitude, “Everything is forbidden
unless God
expressly says you can do it,” while Paul turned the tables and
said, “Everything is
permissible unless God has expressly forbidden it.”
But it seems that
at Corinth some in the congregation had taken Paul’s teaching and
turned it into a slogan to justify their own selfish desires. Their
version was: “Everything
is permissible for me, and if you don’t like it, you will just
have to deal with it!” So once
again Paul carefully qualifies his teaching. He still affirms that everything
is permissible,
but he wants the believers to ask a few questions before they exercise
their freedom. It’s a sort of check list for decision making.
The first question
is: Is it beneficial?--v. 23. That is, does it help you? If not, then
it can’t be an area of freedom. The word expedient means to bear
together. It speaks of bringing something to a wholesome conclusion.
When something is not expedient, it means that it does not produce spiritual
benefits in our life. Therefore, it is not spiritually profitable.
Now believe it
or not, I think smoking cigarettes is an area of freedom for a Christian,
because it’s not forbidden in the Bible. But what does it do for
you besides turn your
teeth yellow, cause throat cancer, cost you money, and cause your wife
or girlfriend to
throw up when they kiss you because smoking makes your breath smell
like dirty old
sweat socks? No one could make a very convincing argument that smoking
is beneficial.
The second question
is: Is it constructive?--v. 23. The word edify is a common one word
that literally means to build a house. The idea here is that we need
to be in the construction business, not in the demolition business,
unless we’re demolishing those things which are sinful and destructive
in our own lives.
Paul wants us to
build one another up in such a way where the church can be seen as a
home where the Lord’s people grow in their relationship with the
Master builder, Jesus
Christ. So we need to ask ourselves if this freedom, when exercised,
will it result in the
building up of others? Will it help them grow in their faith and become
more Christ-like?
Paul brings his
argument to a conclusion by stating that our life is not to be
self-centered or selfish--v. 24. This is tough because we come into
this world with the sinful desire to be number one. All you have to
do is watch children to see how this desire is manifested. A mother
was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin who was 5 and Ryan who was
3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. The
mother saw an opportunity for a moral lesson. She looked at them and
said, “If Jesus were sitting here, he would say, “let my brother
have the first pancake.” Upon hearing this, Kevin turned to Ryan
and said, “Ryan, you be Jesus.”
That story beautifully
captures the number 1 problem of our heart. We all want to be the captain
of our own ship. Because of that each you “Say in your heart, ‘I
am, and there is no one else besides me.’” (Isaiah
47:8) The term “I am” is reserved exclusively for God.
It is our desire
to be our own god that stops many people from making Jesus to be the
lord of their lives. Jesus once told a parable that illustrated our
resistance to his lordship. He likened himself to a nobleman who went
to a far country to receive for himself his people. He said that the
people “Hated him and sent a message saying, ‘We don’t
want this man to be our king!’” (Luke
19:14)
So what Paul is
saying, is that if we want to overcome the sinful desires of our old
nature, then we have to adopt the principle that the edification of
others is more important than the gratification of self! The word wealth
is not used in reference to material things.
It is used to speak
of one’s well-being and profit. We are to live a life that seeks
to lift, to help, and to profit others. We are to live a life that is
not marked by selfishness but by
selflessness. Paul declared the same principle when he said, “Look
not every man on
his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” (Philippians
2:4) While there is nothing wrong with having self interests, but
if we continually want to be blessed by God, then we must be willing
to lay those interests aside for a time when we have the opportunity
to build up another brother or sister.
Next, Paul again
addresses the question of should we eat meat that was sacrificed
to the image of a false god--v. 25. You will recall last week that Paul
urged us to stay completely away from participation in idolatry or false
religions, but this was a different issue. What Paul says is very interesting
since most of the meat sold in the marketplace came from the pagan temples
around the city. Since the temple priests would sell the leftover meat
they got from the pagans who brought animals to be sacrificed, in hopes
of appeasing their gods, to the local grocery stores, the chance of
buying meat that hadn’t been sacrificed to idols was 0%.
Basically, Paul
says that when we go shopping, we don’t need to be asking if this
meat
was sacrificed to idols. So when you go to the grocery store, don’t
need to obsess over the source of your sirloins, instead buy it and
enjoy! Now knowing that the chances are about 100% that the meat was
sacrificed to some idol, how can Paul say that as long as you don’t
ask, then your conscience won’t tell you that to eat that steak
would be sinful? Look at verse 26.
Paul is saying
that even meat bought in the market, which may have previously been
sacrificed to idols, can’t harm you because of the greater principle
that God’s earth was
created to provide for his creation, including man. And though God gave
certain
restrictions to Israel about what kinds of foods to eat, those restrictions
have nothing to do
with us as Christians. The Israelites were to show their faithfulness
to God through their
obedience to not eating those prohibited foods. While it is true that
our obedience to
God’s commandments also speak of our faithfulness. But not every
Old Testament
command deal with us as Christians. And if we begin to teach that eating
certain kinds of
foods will somehow makes us unholy, then we are making salvation to
be built upon on
the principle of keeping the law rather than upon the principle of grace.
And since God
showed Peter that it’s okay to eat what we has provided, then we
have no business giving
such restrictions when it comes to our walk with Jesus Christ.
Next Paul gives
us a case study to illustrate what he has been talking about--v. 27.
Let me slightly update this case study. Suppose one of your old friends,
a friend you had before you got saved, invites you over to his house
for a cookout. You suspect that this
guy is still a big-time drug dealer. But that hasn’t stopped you
from trying to be friendly
to him & his family.
Throughout the
years you have tried to maintain a friendship with him in the hope that
some day you’ll be able to share the Gospel with him & his
family. Maybe your wife made a meal for them when their baby was born.
But this is the first time he has invited you & your family over
for supper.
But this creates
a moral dilemma because you don’t know how he got the money to
pay
for the dinner. So your conscious causes you to ask yourself if you
should accept his
invitation for dinner? Paul would say, “Yes, by all means. If you
want to go, go. How
else do you expect to reach him? Not only that, it’s okay to eat
whatever he sets before you.”
This means that
even if he serves you a 1” thick filet mignon, with a huge baked
potato,
salad, and some red velvet cake for desert, enjoy it. Before you eat
don’t ask how he
could afford to feed you this kind of a meal. Sure, it’s possible
he bought it with money
he made from selling drugs to kids. But that doesn’t make you guilty
of the same crime
by merely eating a piece of meat bought with illegal money. So just
eat, and enjoy that
thick, medium-rare slab of steak without worry about how he could afford
to feed you like a king.
Next Paul gives
us another side to this case study--v. 28. If your friend comes over
to you as you are waiting for the steaks to cook, and he whispers in
your ear, “Don’t tell my wife but I’m still selling drugs.
That’s how I got the money to pay for these steaks.” Then
politely decline and tell him that because your cholesterol is a little
high, you think you’re going to pass on the meat and eat the vegetables
instead.
The fact that he
is making an issue of it shows that he is expecting you as a Christian
to
decline. He’s probably testing you to see if, when put on the spot,
you will do what he
thinks Christians should do. Although the occasion could get real uncomfortable,
it is
better to dishonor the host than it is to dishonor Jesus Christ.
Next Paul introduces
to us the bottom-line concerns that should cause us to limit our
liberty. The first concern we are to have is whether or not our liberty
hurts our
reputation as a Christian--v. 29-30. The Greek word that is translated
“speak evil, slandered, or denounced” means “to injure
the reputation of someone who has done no wrong.”
And the reputation
of the one has done no wrong, that we are to be careful not to injure,
is none other than our Lord Jesus. With that thought in mind, it helps
us to make sure we
don’t misuse our liberty as a mean to become law breakers.
Some time ago,
I remember reading about an adult son of an Arab king, who was in the
United States on some official business. He had broken the law, but
because he had
diplomatic immunity, law enforcement could not prosecute him. All that
could be done
was to expel him from the United States. It appears that he got away
scot-free without
any consequence. But there were consequences. His behavior brought shame
to his father.
God is our Father.
Our heavenly father could have taken us to heaven the moment we got
saved, but he didn’t. Instead, he chose to have us remain in this
world as his diplomats, representing him in this world. We have diplomatic
immunity, for even when we break one of God’s law, God will always
be our Father. We will never lose our son-ship standing with God. But,
when we break one of God’s law, we dishonor the name of our Father
and give others ammunition to slander him. Therefore, if our behavior
may cause others to speak evil of us, thus destroying our witness in
the world, and if it brings disgrace to our heavenly Father, then we
must keep our liberty in check.
Paul has already
encouraged us to ask some questions to help us decide whether to do
something in the gray area. But now, instead of philosophical questions,
he’s asks us
some very personal questions? First of all, can you do whatever it is
you’re considering doing to the glory of God?--v 31.
What does it mean
to do something to the glory of God? If what you are doing is
something that you would do if Jesus were with, then you can say that
what you are doing
is for the glory of God. Or if what you are doing is not something that
you would be
embarrassed for Jesus to see you doing it, then you can say that what
you are doing is for
the glory of God. Or if what you are doing is something that reflects
some of God’s
attributes, then what you are doing is for the glory of God. Now the
truth that since Jesus
is always with you, and he see everything you do, can be either a very
comforting or very
convicting thought!
Let’s try
to apply this principle to some issues in our day. Can you have a beer
to God’s
glory? Some may be able to, but others cannot. Can you dance to God’s
glory? I’m sure
some kinds of dancing can be to God’s glory. But I doubt seriously
can you go to a Rave
to the glory of God? Can you watch TV to the glory of God? A few programs,
I suspect;
but much of it, probably not. Can you make love to God’s glory?
Absolutely, but not to
someone you’re not married to.
Can you gamble
to God’s glory? Can you swear to God’s glory? Can you take
illegal
drugs to God’s glory? I don’t think anybody can honestly say
that we can do any of these
last activities to the glory of God.
On a more personal
note, do you drive to God’s glory? When the speed limit says 45
do you think that what the sign really means is that the police are
going to give you a grace space in case your speedometer isn’t
accurate? So despite what the sign says, do you drive somewhere between
49-50 MPH?
Do you do your
housework to God’s glory? Or do you complain because your husband
& kids are slops who love to leave their clothes everywhere? Do
you eat to God’s glory? Or do you see just how much you can eat,
instead of how much you care to eat at every meal? Do you use your computer
to God’s glory? Or would you be embarrassed if God were to check
your hard drive to see where you’ve been surfing the net? I think
if we would consistently ask if what we are doing glorifies God, then
some gray issues would quickly become black & white issues.
But then Paul goes
on to a third, yet still very important, consideration as he looks at
the
bottom line on Christian freedom. His final question is do you have
concern for the
salvation of people?--vv. 32-33. In the context of what Paul is saying,
is that our liberty should never be used to shock or hurt other people.
What you want to do may be perfectly okay with God, but if what you
want to do will be a stumbling block to someone else, then it must not
be done. For in doing so, it would be a sin.
Paul didn’t
want to do anything that would hurt his ability to win lost people to
the Lord. In order to do that, he consistently had to walk godly before
those that are unsaved. Paul knew that it is only when we live a life
that glorifies God that we will be able to
successfully win people to Jesus Christ. He knew that evangelism is
easier caught than
taught. And the greatest way to allow the Holy Spirit to open up a door
for
witnessing is by living a life that models the life of Jesus Christ--11:1.
I recently read
about article about how the Christian life was compared to a fax machine.
With a fax machine you can send an exact duplicate of a document anywhere
in the world. The writer says that people see a copy of the Lord Jesus
by the way we live our lives.
Reflecting an exact
duplicate image of Jesus Christ in order to win souls should be the
goal of every believer. When you come to know Jesus as your Savior,
the Holy Spirit
lives in you to do many things. One of them is that he gives you the
desire to tell others
about Jesus.
I wonder this morning
how strong is your passion for winning souls? To answer that,
look at the kind of life you are living when you hang around non-Christians.
For if you
had a real passion to win the lost for God, it would transform how you
live your life. For
if you have a passion for winning the lost, then you should greatly
care about how your
life will impact the eternal destiny of those who don’t know Jesus
Christ as their lord.
Let us not forget
that our lives are the only Bibles some people will ever read. They
may form their entire opinion of Jesus Christ by observing our behavior.
You may love Jesus with all your heart, yet, no one can see the love
you have in your heart for him. All they can do is see how you live
your life. And if the way you are living your life is contrary to the
way God says you are to live, then you are sending a confusing message
about the reality of Jesus Christ. This is why it is so important that
your walk match your talk.
Don’t kid
yourself by thinking that the participation in certain activities don’t
matter. The Corinthians thought they could participate in all kinds
of sinful activities and not hurt
anybody. What they didn’t realize is that by doing so they were
hurting their ability to be
a strong witness for Jesus Christ.
I want to close
this morning simply by pointing out that it all comes down to what we
consider to be important in life. Are you more concerned about getting
all you can out of
life? Or is the most important thing glorifying God with your life?
The goal each &
everyone of us should have is to glorify God and allow the Lord to use
our lives so that many will be saved from his wrath and instead receive
his grace and
mercy. There is no higher calling, no higher aspiration than to be an
instrument of grace
and mercy in the hands of God. Will you make that your aspiration?
Let’s
pray
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