Revering the Word
1 Cor. 8 Don’t use freedom in Christ to entertain sin.
Good morning, everyone. This morning we are in 1 Corinthians 8. Recall that the Apostle Paul is writing this letter to a church that he has spent quite a bit of time within the past. He spent as much as a year and a half in Corinth and likely Paul, now much later or later in Ephesus, is writing this letter. Most likely, Paul got some type of report from the church in Corinth as far as how they were doing and what they were struggling with. We see in this particular chapter a pretty significant change of topic here from chapter seven where he was dealing with sexual intimacy and marriage and marriage and divorce and singleness and all those kinds of things. This morning in chapter eight he turns to a topic that was much more of an issue directly in that era than it is today, but it has to do with eating meat sacrificed to idols. Now recall that the Jews, it was a big deal what you ate and didn't ate, eat and they were careful to follow Old Testament law regarding food and they could be rather legalistic about food, but in this particular case there are people and there's false religion, false gods, false worship that took place in Corinth and sometimes they would offer animals to their false gods and worship of those gods. Well then the meat of those animals would be available in the marketplace and the question is as well should a Christian now go ahead and buy meat in the marketplace and eat that food. What if it was sacrificed to an idol? Now Paul already dealt with this issue and actually we've been through it if you've been going through the journey with us. We were in the book of Romans already and in Romans 14 Paul talked about really food goes in the stomach and comes out of you and it's no longer a big deal in the sense of religious devotion. We are free to eat. We don't have the religious laws of the foreign. In fact even Paul was like I'm not even concerned about whether there was meat sacrificed to an idol because an idol and he'll bring us up in this chapter too because an idol is not even real. They're just made up so don't even give credit to the reality of false god or false idol because they're not real and he was saying essentially then and today that if you're strong in your faith and you don't even worry about something that's false like that but there's other concerns as it relates to eating meat sacrificed to idols or just being involved in anything that has to do with an idol he's more concerned about others and more concerned potentially about the Christian's reputation and how it could be looked than he is the actual food itself because again he's like the food itself doesn't really do anything it's just food. But let's go ahead and take in the chapter it's not a very long one. Now concerning things sacrificed to idols we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant but love edifies and it's interesting a lot brought up just in that one verse. It's bringing up the sacrifice of idols like we've talked about and that they have knowledge but knowledge sometimes can make us prideful in knowledge but we need to make sure that we have love for God and love for one another. Verse 2 if anyone supposes that he knows anything he has not yet known as he ought to know but if anyone loves God he is known by him and may we have that kind of devotion to God. I hope that you're listening that I'm teaching because not only we believe in him and we're thankful for the cross and we're thankful for Jesus but that we love God. I mean first of all he loved us by sending his only son to die in that cross for us to forgive us to promise eternal life and our proper response to him is to say God thank you for the gift of the cross thank you for forgiveness thank you for spiritual guidance there's no better place to go than you and I do love you God and I want to follow you and if anyone loves God he is known by him meaning God knows God knows you when you love him he knows who his children are hallelujah. So he goes from that opening to this therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world and that there is no God but one so that's really Paul's like main premise and one of the reasons why he wasn't concerned about whether how the meat got to the market because he believes that all those idols are just false anyways they're not even real so it's not like there's some magic potion over the the the meat because it's just it's just meat but then he says this in verse 5 for even if there are soul called meaning they're not real but soul called gods whether in heaven or on earth and I think what he's trying to say there is even though these gods aren't real there are people who worship false gods I mean they're they're that's real that the fact that people worship false things is real but the gods themselves are not real and then he says as indeed there are many cap or excuse me small g gods and many lords meaning in the world there's yeah there's lots of false religions lots of false devotion yet for us there is but one God capital g the father from whom are all things and we exist for him capital h him and one lord jesus christ by whom all thing by whom are all things and we exist through him capital h so there really is only one true god that's uh that's the nature of christianity and the bible is that god is one god alone and he's been now revealed through jesus christ and he is the only true god that is a that is what we believe as christians and that's what i believe that's what paul believe that's what the bible says therefore for paul that's why he's not worried about isles because they're not even real moving on however not all men have this knowledge so some people don't understand that and some people give a lot of credence you know i think sometimes people are so afraid of everything false that they're almost giving too much credence to false things like by the power of god and the power of the word of god and our faith that he is god alone you know step on the neck of the serpent i mean the devil's real but like basically don't give so much credence to all this false stuff but place your faith in jesus and look at everything else is small s small and god capital g big and we follow a big god and everything else is just nonsense and then you don't give power to to to all this false stuff because you you don't think of it as high and lift it up you only think of god and his son jesus is high and lift it up anyways however not all men have this knowledge but some being accustomed to the idol so some grew up you know being afraid of idols thinking of idols knowing of idols and they're really cautious about anything that might be devoted to an idol they might be giving too much thought to the power of an idol and and therefore they're concerned about it all the time uh so anyways but some being accustomed to the idol until now eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol and their conscious being weak is defiled so because they're giving so much credence to idols and they maybe have knowledge or are concerned that a food a meat might have been sacrificed to an idol and they give so much credence to an idol they're in a way he's calling that weak he's saying now they're really concerned about it because in a way they're giving so much credence to an idol uh but in verse 80 says but food will not commend us to god we are neither the worse if we do not eat nor the better if we do eat again paul gives no credence to idols so he's kind of like what does it matter uh but but take care that this liberty of yours so although we as christians really don't have to go to the store now this isn't as common in our day but we don't have to go to the store and worry about whether well was you know was there someone who processed this cow who worships idols as an example um you know and because it's idols not even real we don't really we don't have to worry about that so we have the liberty to not worry about that we can eat meat and not worry about that and he's saying you could do that then too but take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak for if someone sees you who have knowledge dining in an idols temple will not his conscience if he is weak be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols so this is where it gets interesting where i think for our purposes today we could brought him the scope of this discussion for instance let's say we said well you know what we have liberty to do whatever we want uh we don't have to worry about that we've been given freedom in christ well there are things i think that we could do that would hinder you know i mean it's not supposed to hinder god's name because god has high and lifted up but if we as believers of jesus partake of things in our lives that are not of jesus's character and people see us doing something that is out of character it doesn't make us look good nor does it make our devotion to god look good or even god himself because we are beginning to in our liberty act as though we can do whatever we want and that like sin doesn't matter um you know i've confessed that prior to becoming a christian i used to love to gamble and gambling got me in trouble not only gambling like in a casino which now i have not done for 25 years but then gambling in a sense in the stock market so i did that after i was a christian because i was doing it legally and you know it got me in trouble i lost money in the stock market you know you know in 1999 and that's when i had to really wise up about money uh so anyways i have made it a point to not be in a casino to not gamble uh to do that kind of a thing anymore i would not want to be seen uh gambling in a casino um i'm not saying someone else might enjoy 50 dollars and you know i'm not saying it's a good idea but it's a personal conviction that i have that i don't want to do that you know it would be like as an example because here's what it says let me let me go on for someone sees you who have knowledge dining in an idols temple will not as conscious to be as weak be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idol now this seems like paul's uh raising the ante here because he's saying what if someone sees me dining in an idols temple well an idols temple is actually the place of false worship and what if you were actually having a meal i don't know if they had like a restaurant you know so to speak where you could go to the idols temple and maybe buy food there at the idols temple and even partake of it maybe they cooked it at the temple well now you're actually like hanging out you know in an idols temple and although the food doesn't matter paul's saying it's not like it's just food because the idols not real but if someone sees you there and you're literally dining in a place of false worship it almost looks like you're there worshiping the false idol and paul's saying in that case you'd be using your liberty too far and people would see you dining in this idols temple and they'd be confused about maybe your walk or maybe about what's proper for a christian to do so in that case you're taking your liberty too far you know let's say you go to uh you know in our case you know we have the mawaki box uh good basketball team in mawaki they're downtown they're stadiums downtown and you know so you go to a bucks game and there's there's restaurant slash bars all around right like there wouldn't be any any venue like that so you go there and you you know have a beer and you you have a burger and fries with your friend you know before after the game well you know I don't think that's a big deal you know what I mean you're going down with a friend to enjoy a game no big deal people do that all the time and I don't think that our we were dragging Jesus's name into the mud by you know doing that however what if you're at a at a club I mean when I say a club no I don't even stay up at night but imagine I'm thinking of some kind of like more of a drunken kind of dance place pick up girls kind of a place and it's one in the morning and now someone sees you at a club at one in the morning at a place to really in a time where really nothing good's happened anymore you know it's it's really a sinful place if people at your believer in Jesus and people see you there you're gonna look like you're like what are you doing there you know what I mean and and is it appropriate really even for you to be there at that time and I'd say I wouldn't want to be there at one in the morning I don't know what I'd be doing there you know what I mean I'm happily married and committed to my wife I don't need to be at a club at one in the morning that's more of a pickup joint so here's the point even though well legally could I be there and be a believer in Jesus I guess I wouldn't have to be drunk and I wouldn't have to be carousing women well you could be there but should you be there and you know would it be a good reflection it's probably not a place that I would want to be I wouldn't want people to misread why I was there either so anyways you could use your liberty in Christ and take it to a degree where you're beginning to put yourself in a situation that's compromised and where people could view you or your faith is compromised and you could you know what if you're with a brother in that case and maybe you're strong you're like you know what I'm not paying attention to ladies or to men at this place and I'm not going to give myself the drunkenness I'm hanging out with you but I'm I'm at this place but I'm not doing anything wrong well okay whatever I mean I don't it's not the best place to be but what if you're with your brother and he's not as strong as you well he might be drinking too much and starting to look too much at you know what's going on in that place and be tempted to either drunkenness drugs girls or whatever so are you by being there with someone else helping them to you know get into inappropriate behavior because they might not be as strong as you and that's really trying to give you an example of what the apostle Paul is saying here is it's like you know what don't use your liberty in Christ to the extent that it's going to hinder your reputation God's reputation or drag your brother into sin or having them you know what if they're be like oh well hey pastor J yeah he goes to the casinos all the time or pastor J yeah he goes to the club so what's the problem well I can go to the clubs well maybe if I did go and I didn't sin I'd be strong enough to not but for them if they were there they might get into all sorts of problems but by the fact that I'm kind of endorsing being in that location at that time it frees people up to for them to be in a sinful you know lifestyle or place and I just don't want my brother to stumble so listen to what it says now in verse 11 for through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined the brother for whose sake Christ died and so by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak you sin against Christ so Paul saying listen if you're using your freedom and liberty in such a way that someone who's not as strong as you is using the bad influence that you're partaking in they're taking it to another degree or they're not realizing that it's getting them entangled in sin you're actually contributing to the problem by using your liberty to tempt your brother into sin because he's not as strong as you he or she is weak and by being in that place it's confusing them don't do it so what Paul says in verse 13 then is therefore if food causes my brother to stumble I will never eat meat again so that I will not cause my brother to stumble now I think Paul eat eight meat again but I think what really he's saying here is you know what if I ate meat in a idols temple the meat wouldn't matter however it could really confuse my brother and maybe they would end up going to the idols temple again and that's not a good place for them to be so you know what I'm not going to that idols temple to eat meat because I don't want my brother to stumble so I think we have to look out for God's reputation our reputation and out for our brothers and sisters in Christ don't use your freedom that maybe you're strong enough to participate in to lead other people into sinful practices if you want to read more about this you can do so in Romans 14 which talks much about the same thing praise God that we do have freedom in Christ now we can enjoy this beautiful world that God has given us but don't use that freedom in Christ as a as a means to to entertain sin that's not that's not what God wants us to do let's honor him god bless you all