Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Well, that is probably the best way you can start your morning on any given Sunday. Give them one more round of applause.
[00:00:16] I've been to a lot of churches, and I will say this. You've got one of the best worship teams here, so make sure you give them a thanks when you see them.
[00:00:27] For those of you who don't know me, my name is Logan. I'm one of the campus pastors over at our old Brooklyn campus.
[00:00:36] But this morning I have the pleasure of being with you.
[00:00:39] Before we get started, though, let's go ahead and pray.
[00:00:45] Our dear heavenly Father, as we look around in our culture today, it can be very easy to see the aggression, to see the animosity toward each other.
[00:01:03] And yet you have given us a very different way to consider.
[00:01:08] I pray this morning that as we look at the example from the corinthians, that we could learn something about how to handle differences with each other. And I pray the result would be Christ is glorified in our families, in our church, and in our communities. We love you, and it's in your son's name that we pray. Amen.
[00:01:33] A couple of years ago, we did a sermon series based around the book Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. And in it, he sets out a couple of ideas about. Here are some things to consider when you think about Christianity, maybe for the first time.
[00:01:52] And one of the things that he starts the book with is this idea called the moral law, the law of right and wrong.
[00:02:03] And he says, when you think about history, when you think about cultures, regardless of time, regardless of location, this side of the continent, some other continent, this state, another state, there are similarities that you can trace between what people agree is right and what people frown upon.
[00:02:24] In any culture that you go to, stealing is generally frowned upon. Doesn't matter if you're in the US, doesn't matter if you go across to Asia, doesn't matter if you go over to Europe, people see, if I own something, you can't just walk up and take it from me. There's something wrong with that.
[00:02:43] Murder is generally recognized as well as wrong. Doesn't matter if you're here, the state next door, doesn't matter if you're in a country next door. People agree that you cannot take somebody's life meaninglessly. All right?
[00:03:01] And we could go on and on and on about what the similarities are. But Lewis calls this the moral law. Something that transcends time, transcends cultures, goes beyond and says, this is something we look to, to tell us this is right, and this is wrong. All right.
[00:03:20] But there comes a problem with the moral law. When we say, what happens when we encounter differences of opinions that aren't covered by that?
[00:03:31] We can all say stealing is wrong.
[00:03:35] But what about things that come out in recent culture? Like, I've heard a lot of discussion about AI.
[00:03:42] Is it something that we should engage in? Is it something that we shouldn't? Are there limits? Are there not limits? The moral law doesn't cover that.
[00:03:52] So as we process through different questions, different problems, and different opinions about how to handle those, we have to figure out a way to navigate those differences of opinion. What is the way we can find that will help us walk forward in a way that is healthy to build a better culture, be it in your family or in the church or with your friends or at your workplace or anywhere else. You would like to pick what is the way that we could go forward?
[00:04:28] The apostle Paul talks about this in the book of corinthians.
[00:04:33] Before we can dive specifically into chapter eight, where we're going to be looking, we have to look at some of the background as to what is going on.
[00:04:44] You and I today live in a culture that has taken a lot of the religious aspect out of normal day to day life. If you go to the grocery store, you're going to be going there to get food. You walk in, you grab your steak for the night or whatever. You're grabbing hamburger, fruits, vegetables, whatever, you take it home, you pay for it, whatever, you leave.
[00:05:08] The only reason you're going there is because I either like this brand, it has the best deal or whatever. All right?
[00:05:20] When we look at the culture that Paul is writing to, things look very different.
[00:05:27] Every aspect of their lives was influenced by religious ideas. Okay?
[00:05:37] For example, if you had a party, very often, if you were going to have meat, let's say at this party, you would take that meat to the temple, your local temple, offer it as a sacrifice to the deity of that temple, and then you would disperse that meat to your guests.
[00:05:57] Very much a religious idea.
[00:06:01] If there were public events, like, we celebrate Thanksgiving, we celebrate 4 July, we celebrate Easter coming up, how could I forget that one? That one's kind of important in their lives. All of it was governed around these temples. You would offer your sacrifice at the temple, you would take it home, share with your family, share it with your friends, priests would get some so on and so forth.
[00:06:28] If you were in any kind of networking group, your bakers, your hunters, your doctors, your shoemakers, whatever you want to put there, those all had their individual deities as well, that they looked to that said, these gods blessed us, and we were able to have success in X, Y, and Z, et cetera, et cetera. And it was very difficult to get business without those network groups. Okay?
[00:06:57] After those parties, though, there were leftovers.
[00:07:01] And unlike in our culture, where it's easy to store them, it's not as easy to store them back then. More importantly, meat is extremely valuable because they didn't have the same amount of meat back then. They just have the raising capability, the processing capability to get it to everyone who wanted it.
[00:07:22] So they said, what do we do with this leftover meat? What can we do to profit? What can we do to not waste it? Let's take it over to the local grocery store and leave it for them to sell to the people who want it. So you would go offer it at the temple. Whatever was left over from it, you would take over to your grocery store.
[00:07:40] So if you went to a market to buy meat, you were likely buying something that had been offered as a sacrifice to a pagan deity.
[00:07:53] As people in Corinth began to become christians, they started having questions.
[00:08:05] Their question in specific that they were writing to Paul about was, are we able to eat this kind of meat?
[00:08:12] Can we actually eat meat that has been offered a sacrifice?
[00:08:18] And now, the reason that they were sending this wasn't just for a sense of well being, but it was also because there was a division. And this is what we're going to focus on today. There was a division in the church between what Paul called the strong in faith and the weak in faith. Those who had knowledge and those who did not have knowledge, and this is what their differences looked like. Exhibit group a. They said, we recognize we have this knowledge that there is no such thing as another God besides the God that we worship, the one and only living God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.
[00:08:56] And so if somebody goes to a temple to offer this and know, take the meat back to the market or whatever, it really isn't being offered to anything. What's the big deal? The idol is just a piece of decor kicked around in the temple.
[00:09:13] On the other side, exhibit group b, they were more recent converts, it seems, and they had this understanding. How can you eat what has been offered in an unholy way? You're associating with the very thing that you are rejecting. How can you even think about eating this kind of meat? Okay, on one side, you had people who believed they could eat whatever they wanted. On the other side, people's consciences would not let them because they thought it had been offered as a sacrifice.
[00:09:56] And they write to Paul and say, what do you advise we do?
[00:10:02] Paul's solution is very different than what you and I would expect. They asked him for an answer, a yes or no answer, a right or wrong answer. And he says, I don't want you to think that way.
[00:10:15] I don't want you to process just based off of knowledge. I want you to think in a different and a more deeper way. In fact, the solution I'm giving you is not knowledge, but is processing things through a motive of love.
[00:10:33] And this is what he says in chapter eight, verse one, concerning food offered to idols. We know that all of us possess knowledge.
[00:10:45] This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
[00:10:55] If anyone imagines that he knows something he does not yet know, as he ought to know.
[00:11:03] But if anyone loves God, then he is known by God.
[00:11:11] First thing I want to say is, Paul is not anti intellectual. He's not saying, don't think your way through the problem. Don't have opinions.
[00:11:20] Don't be thoughtful about what you do. If you read the rest of his letters, very often he gives the command. Think about this. Have this mindset among you. Consider this. Stop thinking this way.
[00:11:32] He tells people to think their way through things. But he says, I want you to add something else to your toolbox for solving problems.
[00:11:43] The very first thing he says is knowledge by itself inflates the individual.
[00:11:53] The greek word that's used here is fusiao, and it literally is an image. It's a word that's used of bellows, that Smiths used. They were tools that would go like this, stoke the fire. If you can't imagine that, don't worry. I can't either. Let's think about a balloon.
[00:12:11] Balloons are generally made of rubber or some other kind of light material.
[00:12:15] You inflate them with air to make them pieces of decoration. Some of them are small, and some of them are larger than life. If you think about the Macy's day parade sale. I don't know why people insist on making disturbing looking characters that have eyes that pierce your soul and make them float above you. But we can talk about that some other time.
[00:12:38] If you know anything about balloons or inflatables in general, you know that they are very fragile. We used to have inflatable pools as kids, and every year we seemed to have to get a new one. Because somehow it didn't get folded correctly. And when we pulled it out, there was always a hole somewhere. And usually more than one.
[00:12:59] One little dash in the balloon, one little tear deflates the whole thing and makes it ineffective for what it was designed to do. All right, hold that image in mind. Paul says, when you think about knowledge on its own, solving the problem with I know what's right, do what I say, this is the right thing. I'm going to hold off on what you're saying for the moment.
[00:13:24] All it does is inflate the ego for a moment. It does not have the capacity to bear weight. If you drop weight on a balloon, it's going to go.
[00:13:41] Knowledge by itself cannot sustain what we need in life. All right, so if we can't just use knowledge on its own, what does Paul suggest?
[00:13:56] He says, love of God seeks to build others up. All right, now, when we hear the word love, we cannot imagine a candlelit table in a fancy restaurant sitting across from somebody you like staring smitten into their eyes. That's not what we're talking about here. That's not what Paul's talking about here. The image that Paul has is this idea that comes from the very lips of Christ.
[00:14:24] Greater love has no one than this. Greater agape love has no one than this, than that he laid down his life for his friends.
[00:14:36] The love that is going to make the biggest difference in solving problems is the kind of love that is self giving in a situation.
[00:14:48] Sometimes it requires us to give up our idea of what's right in that moment, to say, I'm not going to insist on my way this time. I'm not going to press forward.
[00:15:04] But what's very interesting to me is what Paul says. Our love is directed toward, or more precisely, who our love is directed toward. Paul doesn't say, love your brother and sister. If you love your brother and sister, things get better. You build them up in love. He says, if somebody loves God, just for a show of hands, how many couples do we have in the room today? How many couples do we have? All right.
[00:15:41] As you begin to love your significant other, do you begin to value some of the things they value?
[00:15:53] Did you learn to enjoy something that you didn't before because you've been around them? All right, if you and I love God, then we're going to begin to value some of the things that he values.
[00:16:08] By the way, the people you and I get agitated with the people that we try and solve problems with, God loves them.
[00:16:17] I just preached a sermon last week on James three, and James says, with our mouths we bless our heavenly Father, and with the same mouth we curse those who are made in his image. All right. The very people we get annoyed with are the very people God loves because they are created in his image, by him.
[00:16:41] And as we work on solving problems together, in our marriages, in our families, in our society, in our church, we begin to build something stronger. When we come at it with a heart, a motive of love that says, because I love God, I'm going to love what God values. And because God values you, even if I disagree with you in this moment, I'm going to choose to work with you in the kind of way that shows I love you as well.
[00:17:14] All right? And the effect is, love builds up. The word that's used here is actually the greek word to build a house. To build a building. And I don't know about you, but a house sounds a whole lot stronger than a balloon. It's going to hold a lot more weight and weather a lot more storms than a balloon will.
[00:17:37] Knowledge says, I know what is right and insists on its own way. Love of God says, you matter to me because you were made in the image of God. One of these can build a healthy, functioning place.
[00:17:51] One of these can meet the demands of reality.
[00:17:56] Paul goes on to say, therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no God but one.
[00:18:09] For although there may be so called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the father, from whom all things are and from whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are and through whom we exist.
[00:18:36] All right. Paul's point here is that as we think about how we love God and how we love others, God is the source of unity for believers.
[00:18:49] All right.
[00:18:51] Paul addresses God, identifies God the father, the one through whom all things exist.
[00:19:00] Everything that you see in creation was made by God. The people around you were created by God. Their personalities, what they like, what they dislike.
[00:19:19] But he also says, for whom we exist.
[00:19:27] One of the guiding ideas of the christian life is that everything is moving toward God. You may have heard it said before, the chief end of man.
[00:19:36] The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
[00:19:41] As we love God, we are drawing closer and closer to him, and we do so not just on an individual basis, but as a whole.
[00:19:55] Some of the people you're annoyed with are going to be in the presence of God with you come eternity. It's probably a good idea to start getting along with them now.
[00:20:04] I've got work to do as well, so I'm not pointing the finger. It's going to be one finger forward, three fingers back.
[00:20:13] If we work together at moving closer and closer to God, great things will happen. All right?
[00:20:24] But it's also important to think about this. If you need one more step, if you need one more piece of convincing, why it's important to consider the people around us as made in the image of God. Paul says this. He points us to Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom all things exist, and through whom we exist, through Christ, we have access to God the father.
[00:20:59] Without Christ's work in our lives, we do not know God as we ought to, all right?
[00:21:09] And he does so by being our mediator. He brings us before God, but he also brings the person you don't necessarily get along with right now before God.
[00:21:20] He delights to bring people to himself.
[00:21:25] And the longer we stay entrenched in this thought of, I have to insist on my way. I have to insist on my way at the cost of the person beside you.
[00:21:35] The more we begin to look with contempt on what Christ does in that person's life, Paul continues closer and closer to a case study. He says, however, not all of us possess this knowledge.
[00:22:00] Some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol. And their conscience, being weak, is defiled. It's marred. It's ruined.
[00:22:14] Food will not commend us to God.
[00:22:17] We are no worse off if we do not eat, and we are no better off if we do eat.
[00:22:26] Remember the two groups that Paul is addressing, people who said you could eat meat that was offered to idols, because they really aren't idols. They're just pieces of wood. They're pieces of metal. And you have people who said when you participate in these offerings, you're actually worshipping these deities. Okay. Paul says, in a sense here, yeah, you're right. There is only one God. We only observe one God. You have this knowledge. But remember, knowledge by itself only puffs up, and it can actually become a detriment to the people around you.
[00:23:03] He says, your standing before God is not because you're able to express your freedom. It's not because you're able to take up your right and use it. We stand before God through Jesus Christ because we are justified by God's mercy, because we are justified by grace. Through faith, we have peace with God. Your standing, your greatest being before God, does not come through. Being able to say, I have a right, I get to use it. The way you stand before God comes through. I am at the mercy of God through Jesus Christ.
[00:23:53] When we begin to see that we are at God's mercy, we are able to stand because of God's mercy. We begin to see that there are times that we yield up our right in love.
[00:24:08] Although we might say, I have the knowledge, this thing's right, this is what we need to do. This is what we sometimes it takes letting go to move forward in love.
[00:24:25] And Paul gives us this case study to think about. He says, you're not the ones doing this on your own. You actually have an example.
[00:24:32] Paul says in verse nine, take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak, to those without knowledge. For if somebody sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to also eat food offered to idols?
[00:24:56] And so by your knowledge, this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died, thus sinning against your brother and wounding their conscience, then when it is weak, you sin against Christ.
[00:25:15] Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
[00:25:23] I want to be very clear. Paul is not advocating becoming a vegetarian.
[00:25:27] Don't worry.
[00:25:29] But he's saying, if something you believe is right is grading on the conscience of somebody you should be caring about out of love for God and out of love for the other person, be willing to give it up in that moment when you're around them. Because, by the way, Christ did the same thing.
[00:25:54] Christ was God, but he didn't use that as an excuse.
[00:26:05] He didn't use that as a reason to withhold serving people like you and I.
[00:26:12] In fact, the apostle Paul writes in the book of Philippians a beautiful poem.
[00:26:18] Although he was equal with God, he did not count equality with God as something to be grasped, as something to be exploited for his own ego. But he yielded it up. He emptied himself and took on the form of his servant, becoming obedient even to the point of death.
[00:26:41] Imagine what would have happened if Christ didn't yield up his right in that moment, if he didn't say, I have the ability right now to leave you where you're at because you've walked away from me.
[00:26:51] You and I would be without hope. You and I would be lost.
[00:26:57] But in Christ, we have this example, we have this reality that love sets the tone for how we make decisions, for how we handle differences.
[00:27:15] By the way, Paul says something very interesting that came from his own personal experience.
[00:27:21] When we sin against our brothers and sisters, we're actually sinning against Christ.
[00:27:34] When Paul was on the road to Damascus. Before he was a Christian, he was violently persecuting the church.
[00:27:42] He was going into synagogues, into people's homes, tearing families apart, because he couldn't abide people saying, jesus Christ is Lord.
[00:27:53] And as he was going on the road to Damascus in order to do the very same thing, there he gets knocked down by blinding light, and he hears a voice that said, saul, saul, why are you persecuting me?
[00:28:12] Would you be willing to believe for a moment that Jesus Christ takes personally what happens to those who are called by his name?
[00:28:19] When something happens to you, he takes it personally.
[00:28:23] But by extension, when we say things, when we do things that sin against our brothers and sisters, he also takes it personally.
[00:28:35] Those are people who are made in his image. Those are people he died to save.
[00:28:44] And so, as we solve problems together, Paul is saying, do it with a heart. Do it with a motive of love, because when you use knowledge by itself, it doesn't have the ability to sustain in reality. But love can build from a sure foundation that is rooted in loving God and loving people because you have been loved by God. First, I want to end with this idea from John Calvin.
[00:29:18] He said, our freedom is not given to us to the detriment of our weak neighbors, to whom we are bound by love, to serve them always and everywhere. Our freedom is given so that, having peace in our conscience with God, we should also live in peace with men.
[00:29:46] For you were called to freedom. Brothers and sisters only. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another.
[00:30:01] Our dear heavenly Father, how great is this way that you have put before us. How wonderful is the example that we have in Christ.
[00:30:12] I pray that this would resonate in our hearts this morning.
[00:30:16] I pray that we would look to a motive of love as opposed to merely knowledge, to solve the problems that we encounter in our day to day lives.
[00:30:28] And I pray that as we do so, we would build a healthy culture in our families. I pray that we build a healthy culture in our church. I pray that we would build a healthy culture in our society. And I pray that as we do so, things would get better around us. Pray that people would be connected to Jesus Christ. And I pray that in all this, his name would be exalted. His name would be lifted high, both now and forever. And we ask this through his name. Amen.
