You cannot be a Christian without being a theologian, because theology is a study of God,
and to be a Christian means you know God and you pursue greater knowledge of God.
So you cannot be a Christian without being a theologian.
But you can be a theologian without being a Christian.
What I mean by that is this.
One can know all there is to know about God and yet not know God.
One can wax eloquently about the love of God and yet not have a tincture of the love of God in himself.
Thomas Akempis, a 15th century German Christian, writes in the very first chapter of his devotional classic, The Imitation of Christ,
Quote,
Lofty words do not make a man just or holy, but a good life makes him dear to God.
I would rather feel contrition than be able to define it.
If you knew the whole Bible by heart and all the teachings of the philosophers, how would this help you without the grace and love of God?
Vanity of vanities and all is vanity except to love God and serve him alone.
Some of the Corinthians had fallen into this trap.
And they claimed great knowledge, but it was a deficient knowledge that did not produce love and good works.
So it was a knowledge that inflated their pride but deflated their love for one another.
So in this passage, Paul teaches them that love, not knowledge, is supposed to be the basis for Christian ethics, how we behave toward one another.
And reminds them that those who have been saved by the self-sacrifice of Christ should build one another up with self-effacing love, not self-inflating knowledge.
And that will be my three points. The first point will be self-inflating knowledge in first six verses, self-effacing love, verses 7 to 10, and self-sacrificing Christ in verses 11 to 13.
Paul begins in verse 1 with the phrase, now concerning, which is now the third time that Paul has used the phrase to indicate a new topic that he is addressing.
And this time the issue concerns food given to idols, food offered to idols.
So within the Roman Empire, various cultic festivals and family celebrations were regularly held in pagan temples.
And so usually when they have these celebrations and festivals, an animal would be sacrificed to the idols.
And then they would be divided up and served to the masses in the temple's dining halls.
For Gentile Christians in particular who had converted from their pagan background to Christianity,
there would have been enormous pressure, social pressure and family pressure to partake in these cultic festivals and family celebrations.
Especially, for example, if it happened to be a wedding of a relative happening in this pagan temple, right?
With the sacrifice taking place.
So the Corinthian believers had written to Paul about this matter, about eating food that was sacrificed to idols on such occasions.
And evidently they had insisted that they had the right to eat such meat at such festivals.
And their justification was this.
All of us possess knowledge.
That was their justification.
The word knowledge is a key word that occurs throughout 1 Corinthians.
It occurs nine times, four times in just this chapter.
And it's related to other key words that occur again and again in 1 Corinthians.
Words like speech, wisdom, right?
And Corinthians were, as we know from the previous seven chapters, they were people who boasted in their words of wisdom, lofty speech, and so-called knowledge.
And Paul contrasted his own approach to ministry from their perspective in chapter 2, verses 4 to 5 this way.
My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power,
so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
The Corinthians believed that they had received special knowledge from God that set them apart from other believers and made them better than everybody else.
And because of that, they disdained even the apostle Paul himself and his teachings, thinking that they possessed superior knowledge than he did.
So this passage here is another instance of their misguided, prideful knowledge.
And Paul roundly rebukes them.
Read what he says.
This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
Paul's not saying here that knowledge is bad or that it is unimportant, right?
Notice the translators put quotation marks around the word knowledge to help us with that.
The knowledge that the Corinthians are boasting of is not true knowledge because it's not grounded in love.
And such knowledge does, all it does is inflate people with pride so that their heads swell up like a balloon, right?
And that's the image that Paul uses here.
It makes them puffed up, full of hot air, having big heads but no heart.
And such knowledge destroys people, Paul says in verse 11.
In contrast, love builds up.
Making them more vain and empty.
It loves, edifies people, builds them up, helping them to grow in a more substantive way.
Paul explains this further in verse 2.
If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.
Paul said earlier in chapter 3, verses 18 to 19.
Let no one deceive himself.
If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
For the wisdom of this world is folly with God, right?
So the Corinthian believers, they valued worldly wisdom over the message of Christ crucified,
over the good news of Jesus Christ.
And because of that, they were, even though they were convinced that they were wise, they were in fact fools.
In a similar way, those who imagine that they, you know, possess some kind of special knowledge that puts them a notch above everybody else,
they do not yet know as they ought to know.
Because true knowledge of God always begins with acquaintance with God, relationship with God.
And when we encounter God, it produces in us humility and submission, right?
I mean, if you read through the Bible, people who encounter God, meet him, they don't, you know, strut around with their chest sticking out and their heads up, held high.
They prostrate themselves on the ground and say, woe is me.
Because they're overwhelmed by the exceeding glory of God and their exceeding unworthiness to face him.
So all true knowledge of God begins with that kind of humility because that's where true knowledge is.
But Paul continues in verse 3.
In contrast to the Corinthian knowledge, self-inflating knowledge that exposed their ignorance of God.
But Paul continues in verse 3.
If anyone loves God, he is known by God.
Notice the two parallel, you know, contrasts between love and knowledge.
It says, you know, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
And then he says those who think that they know something, they don't know as they ought to know.
But those who love, right, are truly known by God.
And notice how he doesn't say those who love God truly know God.
He doesn't say that.
Those who love are truly known by God, right?
You see how he turned it around there from the active verb to know to passive verb to being known by God.
That's similar to what he says later in chapter 13, verse 12 of this chapter.
When he says, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part that I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Right?
So there he is saying that presently the knowledge that we have of God is partial.
We only know him in part.
But he knows us even now fully.
We're known by him in a full way.
Similar thing is said again by Paul in Galatians 4.9.
It's, but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God.
Right?
This is a typical way in which Paul turns things around.
Because for Paul, God's knowledge of us precedes and enables our knowledge of him.
God's knowledge of us is a reference to his electing love.
Right?
That God chose us to make a covenant with us, to have a relationship with us.
So God says to prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1.5,
Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
He's saying, I chose you for a special purpose.
Again, in Amos 3.2, he says,
You only have I known among all the families of the earth.
God's not saying there that, well, I know who you are, Israel,
but I really don't know anything about the other nations.
I mean, that would be an absurd thing to say, right, from an omniscient God.
He knows everyone.
That's not what he's saying.
He's saying that I know you, Israel, in a special way.
I have singled you out for a purpose.
You are my chosen people.
So to know when God knows us, when we're known by him,
that means he's chosen us.
It's his electing love.
It's because we were known by him that we now know him.
Think about it this way.
It's used in illustration from other parts of scripture.
Matthew 7.21-23, when Jesus teaches about the final judgment,
he says,
Why is being known by God so important?
Because when you seek to be admitted to the king's court,
it doesn't matter one bit how much you claim to know him.
What determines your standing in the king's court is not whether or not you know him,
but whether or not he knows you.
Will the king acknowledge you?
Will the king grant you an audience?
And our love for God is the evidence that we are known by God,
and therefore truly know him ourselves.
But the Corinthian believers had become more concerned with possessing knowledge about God
than being known by God and belonging to him.
They were using their so-called knowledge to engorge their own pride
and advance their own agenda
and elevate their own perceived spiritual standing in the eyes of others,
when true knowledge would have instead produced deeper humility and submission to God.
Theology, right, the study of God,
must lead to doxology, which is the worship of God.
Which theoretical knowledge that we have about God
has to lead to personal and relational knowledge of God.
Knowledge of God must lead to the love of God.
As Paul says later in 1 Corinthians 13,
If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love,
I am nothing.
Because if you do not love,
you do not know as you ought to know.
So Paul wants to bring the Corinthian so-called knowledge back to its proper mooring.
If anyone imagines that he knows something,
he does not yet know as he ought to know.
But if anyone loves God,
he is known by God.
Unfortunately, the Corinthian church
was not the only church that was guilty of what one Bible commentator calls
a tyranny of knowledge,
as we see here in this passage.
We've seen many of this throughout church history.
Sometimes the brightest students of the Bible
can be the most insufferable know-it-alls.
You guys probably know some of them.
I've been that myself in my life.
I saw an example of this self-inflating knowledge this past week.
A friend of mine wrote an article for the Gospel Coalition months ago,
and she recently discovered a scathing critique of her article on a Christian blog.
And I read through that critique because she posted it.
And the author of that critique was clearly well-versed in the Bible and theology.
In fact, he probably aligns very closely to exactly where I am theologically.
But as I read through that,
and even when he made a brighter point,
he was completely uncharitable and dismissive.
And whenever he could,
he assumed the worst of her intentions in her writing.
Let me ask you, right?
Have you ever used your superior theological knowledge
as a basis for looking down on others?
When you meet a fellow Christian,
do you always try to see how you measure up to each other
in terms of your spiritual history,
your Bible knowledge, and theology,
so you can establish yourself on the totem pole?
Do you ever engage in theological one-upmanship
in your conversation with other believers?
If your knowledge of God...
I struggle with this because I've been guilty of this so many times myself,
and it breaks my heart that this is what I've done.
If the knowledge of God doesn't make you more like God,
then you do not know God rightly.
Knowledge divorced from love, self-inflating knowledge,
is a telltale sign that you do not know God as you should.
And this is the case even when your knowledge is technically correct.
Having addressed the pride that was the root of the Corinthians' misguided behavior,
Paul returns once again to the issue in which their pride manifests itself
in verses 4 to 6.
Read with me, verses 4 to 6.
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.
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 are all things and for whom we exist,
and one Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
The knowledge that the Corinthians were claiming for themselves
was the foundational truth that there is no God but one,
and that by implication all the so-called gods and idols of their pagan culture
were in fact nothing.
They are not real.
They don't exist.
So Paul agrees wholeheartedly with the Corinthians' belief.
Their knowledge that they had about this was true.
There is no God but one, and Paul agrees with them.
He says,
We too know that an idol has no real existence,
and that there is no God but one.
This is objectively true.
But nevertheless,
Paul recognizes that there are many people in the world
for whom these idols are very much real in a subjective sense.
Do you follow what I'm saying?
So he says in verses 5 to 6,
That for them, indeed, there are many gods and lords,
yet for us there is one God, the Father,
from whom are all things and for whom we exist,
and one Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
Notice the deliberate contrast there between the many gods and many lords
that the Romans serve,
and the one God and one Lord,
one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ.
So Paul is categorically denying that there are any other gods and lords.
That is true.
And that's a powerful Trinitarian statement, actually.
This is one of the earliest books in the New Testament.
It was written around 55 A.D.
And so this is,
and it already alongside God the Father,
the one God,
Paul affirms Jesus Christ as the one Lord.
And Paul has no problem simultaneously affirming
that there is one God and one Lord,
and at the same time that there is no God but one.
Right?
So this is the doctrine of the Trinity.
That God is triune,
that he is three in one,
that there is one divine essence,
but three divine persons.
This wasn't a doctrine that was made up later
and added to Scripture.
And of course,
the Holy Spirit is not mentioned here
because Paul is using the parallelism
of the many gods and many lords
against one God and one Lord.
But he includes the Holy Spirit later
in the Trinitarian formulae
in 1 Corinthians 12, 4-6.
So though they are one God,
the Father is not the Son,
and the Son is not the Father.
They are distinct persons
with distinct operations.
So look at verse 6.
Paul notes here,
the Father is described as the one
from whom are all things
and for whom we exist.
The Father is both the origin
and the destination of all creation.
But note that Paul doesn't say this.
He doesn't say,
from whom are all things
and for whom are all things.
That's not what Paul says.
He says,
from whom are all things
and for whom we exist.
He's making this personal for all of us.
not just abstractly,
oh, all creation is from him.
No, you are from him.
All of us are from him.
He is our origin
and he is our destination.
And this is a question,
these are questions
that everyone,
every human being wants to answer.
Who am I?
Where did I come from?
What is the meaning of life?
What is my purpose?
And apart from God,
you search for answers
to those questions in vain.
We have the answer.
The word of God tells us here
that we are from God the Father
and we exist for him.
Every Christian in this room
will tell you that
it's only when you renounce
your own sinful ways
and surrender yourself to God
that you truly come to know yourself
and find your true identity.
It's only when you give your life to God
and live for him
that you find true meaning
and fulfill your ultimate purpose in life.
If you're not yet a Christian,
I plead with you.
Give your life to God today.
And the Son of God
is described in verse 6 this way,
as the one through whom are all things
and through whom we exist.
If the Father is the origin and destination,
the Son is the medium,
the road to and from the Father.
And this too is personal.
Not only are all things through him,
it says we exist through him.
He is the word of God
through whom we came to exist.
And he's the mediator
through whom we receive salvation
and are united with God.
I've used this analogy before,
but if you think of receiving a gift from someone,
there's a giver
and there is the deliverer
and there is the gift itself.
You can think of God the Father as the giver,
God the Son as the deliverer,
and God the Spirit as the gift.
In terms of creation,
God the Father speaks things into being.
He creates, he's the planner.
And God the Son is described in Scripture
as the word of God
that proceeds from the Father
to bring all creation into being,
to accomplish it.
And the Spirit is described in Scripture
as the breath of God
that brings life,
imbues all creation with life.
And in terms of salvation,
it's God the Father
who plans from before the foundation of the world
to save his people.
And it's God the Son
who is sent by the Father
to accomplish that
by living and dying on the cross
and rising again from the dead.
And it is a Spirit
who is then sent by the Father and the Son
to imbue spiritual life,
impart spiritual life
to all his people.
If you want to,
and because of this,
and because all things are through Jesus,
salvation is through Jesus,
because Jesus is the way,
the truth,
and the life,
and no one comes to the Father
except through him.
If you want to get to know God
and to be known by him,
if you want peace with God,
if you want eternal life,
only way is through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if you have not yet come to know
this Jesus for salvation,
you have a great opportunity to do it today.
So if this was the knowledge
that the Corinthians claimed to have,
what's the problem?
Right?
Isn't this all great things
that they should believe?
Yeah, Corinthians believed
that there is no God but one.
This is a great truth to believe.
So what's the problem, Paul?
Why are you rebuking them?
The doctrine is true.
The problem is not with what they believed
about the oneness and uniqueness of God.
The problem was in their application
of this truth.
The Corinthians were arguing
that because there's only one God
and the idols are no real gods at all,
that they should be free
to attend these cultic celebrations
and festivals and pagan temples
and eat all they want.
They're filled with the meat
that was sacrificed to idols.
Their logic was this,
why should we let this delicious
and expensive meat go to waste?
They're just,
they're nothing at all,
these idols.
They were correct in their knowledge,
but they were wrong
in their application
of their knowledge
in two important ways.
first, as Paul argues later in chapter 10,
even though the idols are no gods at all,
food offered to them in sacrifice
is essentially being offered to demons.
Therefore, to participate in such feasts
is equivalent to participating with demons.
So the Corinthians were wrong to think,
their knowledge was deficient,
they were wrong to think
that they could participate
in such feasts with immunity.
But that's not Paul's concern
in the present passage.
He'll deal with that in chapter 10.
Paul's concern with them is this,
the second problem
with their application
of their knowledge,
that their application of knowledge
did not stem from love
and consideration
for their fellow Christian brothers
and sisters,
but instead,
they were acting out of
self-inflating knowledge,
not self-effacing love.
That was the problem.
They were behaving
with a sense of selfish entitlement.
Oh, I could do that.
Not selfless love.
And that brings us
to the second point,
self-effacing love.
In verses 7 to 13,
Paul explains why
their insistence
on participating
in such pagan feasts
was selfish and unloving.
Because while their knowledge
that idols are no gods at all
is correct,
Paul adds this in verse 7.
Read with me.
However,
not all possess this knowledge,
but some,
through former association
with idols,
eat food as really offered
to an idol,
and their conscience
being weak
is defiled.
Even though
all Christians
believe cognitively
in their mind
that the idols
are no gods at all,
there are some,
because of their
former association
with idols,
still do not share
this knowledge
in an experiential,
emotional way.
Do you guys see
what I'm saying?
It's similar to how
many people in our culture
view superstitions.
Most people in the U.S.
do not believe
in superstitions.
They know that
superstitions,
they're not real.
There's no substance
to them.
But,
even though they know
that objectively,
many people
still believe
in superstitions
subjectively.
So,
they still avoid
walking under a ladder.
They try not to
cross paths
with a black cat.
They try not
to put an umbrella
indoors.
They try to be
extra cautious
on Friday the 13th.
You guys all know
people like that,
right?
So,
yeah,
they know
that these are not true.
They know the superstitions
are not true,
but subjectively,
in their experience,
they can't live like that.
They believe it.
In the same way,
when you have worshipped
idols year after year
at those pagan festivals,
even if you know
that they're not real,
they sure feel real
when you're offering
a sacrifice to them,
and that could lead
them to idolatry.
And for them,
because of their
weak conscience,
it would lead
to their defilement.
So,
then in verse 8,
Paul offers a brief
concession to the Corinthians.
He says,
food will not
come to God.
We are no worse off
if we do not eat
and no better off
if we do.
So,
he's conceding this
to the Corinthians.
You're right.
Food doesn't
command us to God.
It's not going to make us
more acceptable to God
or less acceptable to God.
You're right about that.
But,
Paul returns to his
main objection in verse 9,
but take care
that this right of yours
does not somehow
become a stumbling block
to the weak.
Even if you have
the right to eat
such things,
you should not
follow through with it
and exercise your right
to do so
because our actions
affect other people
and we need to be
considerate toward them.
Our right must not
become a stumbling block.
What does Paul mean
by a stumbling block?
This is commonly
misunderstood.
Paul explains it
in verse 10.
For if anyone
sees you
who have knowledge
eating at an idol's
temple,
will he not be encouraged
if his conscience
is weak
to eat food
offered to idols?
And so,
by your knowledge,
this weak person
is destroyed.
So,
if a Christian
asserts his right
and with a clear conscience
eats a sacrifice
made to an idol,
a Christian
with a weaker conscience
might see that
in the temple
and be like,
oh,
he's doing it.
Maybe I can do the same
but he himself
cannot do so
with a clear conscience.
And so,
in doing so,
he will be sinning
against the Lord.
So,
to be a stumbling block,
then,
it doesn't just mean
to offend
someone's sensibilities.
It means to cause
that person to sin,
to lead that person
to sin.
And when Paul says
that the Christian
with a weak conscience
will be encouraged
to eat food
offered to idols,
the word translated
encouraged
is actually
the exact same
Greek word
that was used
earlier in verse 1
to mean build up.
So,
Paul's saying,
literally,
they will be built up
to eat food
offered to idols.
So,
he's using that word
in an ironic way
because he said
that knowledge puffs up
but love builds up.
But Corinthians,
in contrast,
think that they're
building up one another
by imparting
this so-called knowledge
to each other.
They think that
they're building
each other up
and they're saying,
oh,
brother,
it's no sin
to eat this meat.
Let me show you.
Watch me eat this meat.
Come,
eat it with me.
Let me show you
how to live in freedom.
That's what they're doing.
They think that
they're building
the other brother up
but Paul says,
you're building them up
to be destroyed
because they might be led
to idolatry
and apostasy.
They thought
they were building them up.
They thought
they were being constructive
but they were just
being destructive
and how selfish
and self-centered
is this,
what they're doing.
Because Paul says
in verse 12
that by doing this,
what they're doing
is sinning
against their brothers
and wounding
their conscience
when it is weak.
It's the strong
that should accommodate
themselves to the weak
not the other way around.
Instead of bearing
your weaker brother
and covering up
his weakness
in love,
you are wounding him
while he is weak
as a predator would do.
How selfish is that?
This seems to be
a recurring problem
for the Corinthians
because remember
that one of the
Corinthians slogans
is all things
are lawful for me.
Paul quotes
that slogan twice
in chapter 6-12
and chapter 10-23
and in both instances
he sharply qualifies
their slogan
by saying that
while all things
are lawful,
not all things
are helpful.
And Paul's addressing
the same idea here.
Yes, it might be
lawful for you
to do that.
It turns out
that it's not even
lawful as we find out
in chapter 10
because they're
participating with demons.
But Paul's saying
let me grant you that
for the sake
of my argument.
Okay, let's say
that it's lawful.
Even if it's lawful
for you,
is it helpful
for you to do that?
Does it build up
your other brothers
and sisters
for you to eat there?
You might have
the right to do it
but that doesn't mean
that you should
do it.
And so this is
the principle,
the two-fold principle.
If you're not
fully convinced
that what you're doing
is lawful
and you do it anyway,
your action
does not stem
from faith
and therefore
it is sinful.
That's what
the weaker brothers
were doing.
But even if you
are fully convinced
that what you're doing
is lawful,
if what you're doing
is not helpful
for building up others
and you do it anyway,
then because your action
does not stem
from love for others,
it is sinful.
For the Christian,
love,
not our individual freedom,
is the higher code.
So Paul says
in verse 13,
it's so inspirational,
therefore,
if food makes
my brother stumble,
I will never eat meat
lest I make
my brother stumble.
Paul himself
was willing
to forego
meat altogether
out of his love
for other Christian
brothers and sisters.
He was ready to,
willing to,
curtail his own rights
out of his love,
self-effacing love
for others.
This idea is probably
offensive to a lot of you,
right?
You might say to yourself,
why should I change
how I live
based on what
other people think?
Why should I give up
my freedoms
for them?
Why should other people
have any say
in how I think
and behave?
You do you,
I'll do me.
Right?
That is the prevailing
narrative
attitude
of our culture.
We supremely value
our individual freedom
and believe that
everyone should have
the right to believe
what they want
and behave
the way they want.
But as the renowned
Canadian philosopher
Charles Taylor
insightfully observes,
while our culture
has uncritically
adopted the truism
that, quote,
nobody should have
the right to tell others
what to think
or how to behave,
it is clear
that to have
any kind
of livable society,
some choices
have to be restricted,
some authorities
have to be respected,
and some individual
responsibility
has to be assumed.
unrestricted
individual freedom,
the idea
that each person
should be completely
self-determining
is an illusion.
No one who thinks
and lives that way
will be able
to stay married
for long.
No person
who lives
and thinks
that way
will be able
to function
as a normal
member of society.
That kind of
radically libertarian
attitude toward human
freedom
destroys relationships.
it erodes community.
And the church
is an intimately
related
and intricately
interdependent
community.
It is described
as the family
of God.
That's why Paul
calls these people
brothers.
And if the family
is to thrive,
some individual
rights must be
restricted.
If the family
is to be built up,
some individual
rights have to
be given up.
But Paul
doesn't demand
this.
He doesn't
enforce this.
He encourages
each believer
to do so
voluntarily.
For the members
of the church,
self-effacing love,
not self-inflating
knowledge,
is the rule.
It's not enough
to be oriented
inwardly toward
yourself.
We have to be
oriented outwardly
toward others.
And Christian love
demands that we
forego our rights
for the sake
of others.
not insist
on our rights
at the expense
of others.
And here's
the reason
why this
ethic makes
so much sense
from a Christian
perspective.
That brings us
to my final point,
self-sacrificing
Christ.
Paul says
in verse 11,
And so by your
knowledge,
this weak person
is destroyed.
And who is
this weak person?
Paul continues,
The brother
for whom
Christ
died.
this is not
some stranger
we're talking
about here.
It's your
Christian brother,
it's your
Christian sister,
shouldn't you
gladly give up
your rights
for his or her
sake?
And if he is
a Christian brother,
that means he is
someone for whom
Christ died.
The one Lord
Jesus Christ,
the one through
whom all things
were created,
that Lord Jesus
Christ died for him.
He died for her.
Christ died on the
cross for sins
so that they might
be forgiven and
live.
And when your God
and when your Lord
did this for him,
you,
a mere servant,
you would selfishly
and pettily
insist on your
trivial rights
to destroy him.
The height
of arrogance.
The height
of ignorance
and selfishness.
When you do this,
Paul continues
in verse 12,
not only are you
sinning against
your brothers,
you sin against
Christ.
Why is this so?
Because your
Christian brothers
and sisters
belong to Christ
because they are
members of the
family of God
because by virtue
of their union
with Christ
by the Spirit
through faith,
they are parts
of the body
of Christ.
So by sinning
against them,
the parts of
the body,
you are sinning
against Christ
himself.
And look at
how closely
Christ identifies
with his people.
Jesus says
in Mark 9,
42,
whoever causes
one of these
little ones
who believe
in me
to stumble,
it's the exact
same word,
it would be
better for him
if with a heavy
millstone hung
around his neck,
he had been
cast into the
sea.
What a fearful
prospect.
We should
tremble at the
prospect of
leading any one
of our Christian
brothers or sisters
into sin.
Do you see
how loved a
Christian is
by the Lord
Jesus Christ?
Take a moment
to examine
yourself.
Is there
anything that you
are doing in your
life that might
lead others to
sin?
Are you
wounding another
brother or sister's
conscience in any
way?
Are you leading
a weaker Christian
sister into sexual
immorality and
fornication by the
way you show
physical affection to
your boyfriend or
girlfriend?
Are you leading a
weaker Christian
brother who was
formerly addicted to
alcohol back into
drunkenness by
drinking beer in
front of him?
Are you leading a
Christian?
Are you leading a
weaker Christian who
was formerly
involved with
Hinduism back into
idolatry by going
into a Hindu temple
to do some yoga?
Are you leading a
weaker Christian into
sin by watching TV
shows and listening
to music laced with
profanities and
vulgarities which
they themselves cannot
watch with a clear
conscience?
even if you can do
all of those things
with a clear
conscience are you
just thinking about
yourself or are you
thinking about your
brothers and sisters?
My examples might
cause considerable
discomfort to some of
you but let me ask
you if you're thinking
to yourself well why
should I care for them
is your attitude that
of the attitude of
Christ?
Christ is the
sinless one yet he
died for our sins
he had a perfect
relationship with God
the Father yet he
was forsaken by him
so we can be
reconciled to him
restored to communion
with him
we were his rebels
eneemies
yet Christ took the
punishment that we
deserved
and you can't give
that up for the sake
of your brothers and
sisters
see how Paul responds
therefore if food
makes my brother
stumble I will never
eat meat lest I make
my brother stumble
let that be your
resolution today
let that be your
attitude today
far be it from me
that I should make
a brother or sister
stumble on account
of my indulgence
and if you are not
yet a Christian
I hope from this
passage you see the
gravity of sin and
the intensity of God's
love for his people
first the life of sin
is a pathway to
eternal destruction
you must stop being
your own God
you must stop living
for yourself and turn
to the one God the
Father from whom are
all things and for
whom we exist
you must stop being
your own Lord and you
have to turn to the
one Lord Jesus Christ
through whom are all
things and through whom
you exist secondly note
the intensity of God's
love for you he loved
us enough to die for
us Jesus Christ the
Lord of life died the
death that we deserved
on the cross so we
might live the life that
only he deserved to
live Christ has earned
our righteousness he
has won our victory and
he has flung open the
gates of heaven for you
only if you would repent
of your sins
and believe in Jesus
Christ for salvation
don't wait until next
week or next year
we're creatures who do
not even know what
tomorrow holds for us
you can be known by the
almighty creator
you can know him
personally
intimately
you can know him and
have a relationship with
him today
stop spurning his love
receive his love today
let's pray together
God we know that this
this truth this principle
that you enjoin on us it
makes no sense to the
world it makes no sense
when we live with
worldly attitudes it
only makes sense in so
far as we take on the
attitude of Christ who
though being in very
nature God did not
consider himself
considered equality with
God something to be
grasped but humbled
himself
so Lord help us to love
as you love us with
self-effacing love
help us to build one
another up for your
glory
in Jesus name we pray
amen
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