Living for God's Glory

SERMON: 2011-10-23--co1011--living-for-god-s-glory-part-1 SOURCE DURATION: 00:42:28.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with clear sermon exposition (segment [0]). The material concludes with a sustained musical/devotional segment (segments [351]-[367]), which is supported by the acoustic music interval and represents the end of the recorded service content. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:36:42.060-00:42:26.060 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, I don't know if you already know this, I suspect you do, but people in Reformed circles historically have been very fond of talking about doing all of life for the glory of God. And that phrase, "living for the glory of God," comes, of course, from the verse of our text this morning, 1 Corinthians chapter 31, where Scripture says, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." Do it all for the glory of God. The question, of course, is not only what does that mean, but what does that look like? And so in the time that we have available this morning, I want to try to walk you through this passage a little bit, and want to make a number of observations from this text that hopefully will bring the message home to each one of us this morning. And the first observation that I want to make is that the context of this verse has to do with eating meat sacrificed to idols. Or more specifically, it has to do with whether Christian believers ought to be free to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols. Listen to the broader context. We'll read a couple of the verses leading up to this passage beginning at verse 25. Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if anyone says to you this has been offered in sacrifice, then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience' sake. The other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another man's, by another's conscience? If I take part in the meal with thanksgiving, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for? You see, the issue that Paul addresses here is an issue that every new believer living in a pagan empire was confronted with on a daily basis. And that is the fact that most of the meat that was sold in the marketplace had been used in pagan idol worship. The animals would be sacrificed, and when the whole sacrificial ritual was over, some of the meat obviously was made available to be sold on the market. And Paul has already told the Corinthians in the verses that even precede the verses that we have now just read, that Christians ought to have nothing to do with these pagan temple rituals. Because he says even though those idols are dead idols that have no life, behind the idols stand demonic spirits. And when you participate in idol feasts, you are in fact having communion with the demonic powers. And he says you cannot eat from the table of demons and the table of the Lord at the same time. So that very legitimately raises the question then for people, well, what about the meat that has been sacrificed to these demonic spirits? Is the meat inherently unclean? Am I in danger of defiling my spirit if I eat that meat that has been dedicated to evil spirits? And so that's the issue that Paul addresses here, and Paul says categorically no. And the reason he says is the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, that's a quotation from Psalm 24, and then in 1 Timothy 4-5 he says that food is not unclean in and of itself. Remember, this is all in the light of Old Testament dietary laws where clean and unclean food was a huge distinction, but he says it is consecrated, it is made holy by the word of God and by prayer. So he says when an unbeliever invites you into his house and he offers you a pot of meat, you can eat it with a clear conscience, don't make a fuss, don't raise the question, where did this come from, pray over it, it's all good. But he says it might happen that somebody present with you at that meal says to you, this meat has been sacrificed in the temple. Now he says in that case, because of the man's conscience he's telling you because he doesn't think a believer ought to be participating, eating meat that has been sacrificed to evil, he says for that reason you deny yourself and you do not eat the meat lest you cause the brother to stumble. See that's the context here of eating or drinking for the glory of God. He is saying I have the perfect freedom as a believer to participate in this activity. But when my freedom or my activity is going to cause you to lose your faith, then he says I will gladly give up my freedom so that you will not be hindered in your journey with God. Now without elaborating upon that extensively, this is the third time in the New Testament that Paul addresses this issue because as I said, this was a major issue for Christians living in a pagan Roman Empire. How do we live in the world without being part of the world and how do I live in the new freedom that Christ has come to bring without causing younger brothers to stumble? And so for example two chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 he addresses the subject when he says in verse 4, "So then about eating food sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one." That is to say only God is real, the demonic power is not real, God is bigger. And then he goes on to say not everybody knows this, now listen to his argument, "Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as being sacrificed to an idol and since their conscience is weak it is defiled." He goes on to say, "Food does not bring us near to God, we're no worse off if we do not eat and we're no better off if we do. Be careful however that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak for if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols. So this weak brother for whom Christ died is destroyed by your knowledge." That is to say your freedom will embolden him to try to do what you're doing but his conscience can't handle it and he will lose faith because he is stepping into places that he is not mature enough to handle. It'll give the devil an advantage over him. Paul teaches the same thing back in Romans chapter 14. He says, "As one who is in the Lord Jesus I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself but if anyone who regards something as unclean then for him it is unclean and if your brother is distressed because of what you eat you're no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died." So notice again the context here of eating and drinking to the glory of God is that you lay aside your Christian freedom so that a weaker brother will not stumble and lose faith and the distinction there is important because in Christian circles we often talk about well don't give offence to one another and sometimes that becomes so ridiculously extreme that you don't like my hairdo and so now what do I do with it? You don't like the clothes that I wear or the shoes that I wear or the car that I drive and we sometimes think under no circumstance can we give offence to anybody and what that does of course is it boxes you in more and more and more and you can't live because somebody's got an opinion about most everything. Understand that's not the context. The context is you have the Christian freedom to live this way. You have the Christian freedom to eat this meat sacrificed to idols because you know the demons don't have power. The idols aren't real but this younger believer doesn't have that knowledge and so as he tries to do what he sees you doing his conscience is violated and as a result he loses faith. He stumbles, he drifts away from God and Paul makes it very clear that under no circumstances we should be a stumbling block to a weaker brother or sister. Therefore he says verse 13 of chapter 8 of 1 Corinthians if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin I will never eat meat again so that I will not cause him to fall. Are we clear on what Paul is talking about? My Christian freedom I lay aside so that my weaker brother will not be hindered but rather helped in his walk with God. So that's the context in terms of eating and drinking to the glory of God but now it goes further because by extension this principle says the apostle Paul applies to all of life. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. And remember now the glory of God is laying aside my legitimate rights so that a younger or a weaker brother or sister will not be hindered but rather helped in his or her journey towards God. And that, if you get the drift of where this is going, gets very practical very quickly. It means for example that if I'm accustomed to having a glass of wine with my dinner and you come over and you've had a history of alcoholism for example, though it's perfectly legitimate for me to have my glass of wine with my dinner, for your sake I will put it away so that I will not cause you to stumble. That's why years ago in this church we used to have wine for communion, a lot of you will remember that, and eventually we went to grape juice because at the time we had a number of people who had struggled historically with alcoholism. And we said it's not fair for you to be tempted even by the smell of the wine. And so we said though it is our right biblically to use wine as a community, we're going to lay aside those rights so that we will not cause you to stumble. I look back in those days and I remember how astonished I was at the number of people in the congregation who took issue with that, not understanding the biblical principle that was at stake. As a matter of fact we lost one family over it, ironically enough they went to a church where they served grape juice rather than wine. And I say consistency though art a rare virtue. It means too that if there are certain activities that I think as a Christian I may freely enjoy. Sports activities perhaps or certain movies that I watch or particular types of entertainment that don't hinder my journey with God. But there's somebody in my circle of acquaintances who's come out of that whole lifestyle and who cannot afford to go back into it, then rather than insisting upon my own rights and doing what I want to do, if need be I will lay aside my rights lest I cause my weaker brother or sister to stumble and to lose faith. It's too that when you come to church and you've got your favorite place to sit, oh aren't we like cows in the stable who all love their stanchions, amazing. Or you come to church and you want to hang around with your friends as many of us do. But there's somebody else, a new believer maybe, who doesn't know that the seat is yours and is rude enough to sit in it. Or stands over by the wall while you're having a great old time with your friends and everything inside you says well you know I'm here for my needs and somebody else to look after him. You lay aside, you hear me? You lay aside your rights. You lay aside your liberty and you embrace the weaker brother or the weaker sister so that you will not only not hinder their journey with God, but you will help their journey with God. The scripture says welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. And that's in the context of when other people come to a church community who don't necessarily share your values because their background is different or they're new in Christ and they haven't yet learned all the language of Zion, instead of looking down your nose at them and saying well if you're really going to belong here you've got to be like me. You lay aside your own self-righteousness and you embrace that brother and sister because who are you to be in judgment over somebody that God has accepted. Do you understand what I'm saying? It is a radical teaching because it's not about you and me and it's not about all the rights that are, understand this is not about sin, this is not about stuff that you shouldn't be involved in at all to begin with. No, no, this is stuff that is legitimately yours, it's like you come to church and you like the way worship goes in a certain particular direction but it doesn't help a new believer or it doesn't help somebody who is new in Christ. Are you willing to lay aside your preferences so that somebody else can grow in Christ? You've heard me say before I hate Jewish music but if Jewish music is what it takes to bring somebody to faith in Jesus I will sing Jewish music with all my heart for the glory of God and I want you to do the same. So why is this so important? Why is eating and drinking and whatever we do in this self-sacrificial fashion for the well-being of somebody else so important in scripture? Well notice in the text that Paul quickly gives us three reasons, let me walk you through them. First of all he says it gives glory to God. So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. God is glorified when we deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him, why? Because it demonstrates faith and it demonstrates obedience. We won't spend a lot of time on this but you've seen this many times before. In the kingdom of God, God is our all source of supply. When we become a Christian we say God is my supplier, I will live entrusted in obedience in contrast to what lives in the world and by nature it's all about us and we may be generous by nature and we may be kind by nature but there's always a limitation to it because there's always at the bottom line there's me but when we come to Christ and God becomes my father and I'm learning to trust him and I'm learning to obey him then what happens in this is that God receives glory because that kind of transformation can only really take place through faith in Jesus. I've been reading just the last little while in one of my Christian history books the story of Jean de Brebeuf who was one of the Jesuit missionaries to the Huron tribes in the mid-1600s. This was a man highly educated but motivated by the passion of Jesus, traveled 1250 miles inland to evangelize the Huron tribes of the Indian, the Indian Huron tribe. It was a tough goal, he was there 10 years before he saw his first convert. Every time something went wrong, every time there was a plague or a cop failure or a disease he got blamed for it and they they try to kill him on more than one occasion but eventually he saw a harvest of souls and hundreds of them started coming to faith in the Lord Jesus and then disaster struck. The Iroquois, a union of tribes, took them on and destroyed all these Huron villages and eventually Jean de Brebeuf got captured and tortured to death and I'll spare you the details of how he got tortured together with seven or eight other, seven other Jesuit missionaries died a most horrific death and died in such a way that the prayer "Jesus have mercy" remained on his lips, his captors were captivated by the fact that they could not make him cry out in pain, they ate his heart at the end of it because they wanted his courage and people look at that and they say what a waste of life and maybe as maybe they should have handled it differently but you know God gets glory when we lay down our lives for others and in the total scale of universal things who knows what is accomplished in heaven by those little acts of obedience when you and I say for the glory of God I'm going to deny myself, I'm going to deny myself over against my wife, I'm going to deny myself over against my kids, I'm going to deny myself over against the greater society, I'm going to show that my faith in God is real and is built on obedience to his word. Paul later on in 2 Corinthians puts it this way talking about the generosity of the Christians in helping out the believers in Jerusalem he says because of the service by which you have proved yourself men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ and for your generosity in sharing with them and everyone else. Why is it important to live this way? First of all because it gives glory to God and then secondly interestingly enough it removes obstacles to faith notice how Paul goes on in the words of our text verse 32 and 33 of 1 Corinthians 10 do not cause anyone to stumble whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God notice three categories of people here Jewish believers, Greeks who are unbelievers, the church which constitutes believers even as I try to please everybody in every way for I am not seeking my own good but the good of many so that they may be saved. Earlier on Paul says I've become all things to all men that I might by all means gain some there is something about giving up our rights and demonstrating the humility of Jesus that removes barriers to faith. Did you know that? Do you know why that is? If you listen to nothing else this morning please try to listen to this God is looking for the hearts of men and women people who will love him from the heart and who will obey him from the heart. He could have easily used force and power to get us to where he wants us to be but he's chosen not to do that because he wants us to love him from the heart. What do you think is the big obstacle in loving God from the heart? We're afraid of authority and we're afraid of power because power and authority in our worldly experience most typically has been used to take advantage of me and to rob from me and a lot of us have trouble truly bending the knee before God because in the depths of our hearts we're not really sure that he is good and we're not really sure that he has my best interests at heart is that not true? And so why does God send his son into the world to die for us on the cross but to demonstrate to us that his love is safe? He so loved us that he gave his son and though he is all powerful he chooses not to use that power in a negative fashion he shows us that he's worthy of our love and worthy of our trust you understand what I'm saying? But now take it a step further because most people don't come to God without God going through people to reach them is that not true? So now you're trying to lead somebody to the Lord and you're trying to you know tell them they need to yield to Jesus and this is what Jesus is inviting and calling them to do? What do you think is the big obstacle that you're running into with people whose hearts are broken? What's in it for you? If I give myself over to your teaching if I give myself over to what you're suggesting how do I know that you aren't going to take advantage of me and rob me of my freedom? Most of the time this is not articulate in people's minds. Most people never think deeply enough but if you search long enough that's what you find at the bottom of the human heart and that's especially true for people who have been wounded or broken very early in life and who have discovered they cannot trust anybody fundamentally. So how do you win people like that over? You lay down your life and you show them that your power is being surrendered so that they do not have to fear you or God but they can see how much God loves them and how much you love them. If you understand this by the way you will understand that when you're walking people in a discipleship road there comes a point where constantly they're taking you on and they're making life miserable for you and they're waiting for the moment when you will say to them listen you're too much, you're too bad, you're too evil, I want nothing more to do with you. What they're trying to find out is do you really love me more than you love yourself? And that doesn't mean you just willy-nilly put up with anything that they come up with or you don't draw boundaries. We'll talk about that if we have time in a few moments but it means that at the end of the day it's not about you, it's for their good. Am I making sense here? Am I getting across how radical the call of the cross is and how much changing the Lord Jesus has to do in every one of our lives to get us to a point where it's no longer just about me because that's always the default position that we come back to? No, it's about God and it's for the well-being of God's people. So why is this important? Because it gives glory to God when the world can see that I have been transformed from the inside out because there's no other force in the universe that will change me from a selfish man or woman into a godly man or woman with the power of Jesus. We do it because it removes the stumbling block that keeps other people from coming to faith and then, and maybe this is the most important of all, this is the way of Jesus. I love the way Paul ends this passage, he says, "Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ." Other translations I like even better, "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." Why should we live this kind of life of self-denial? Because that's what Jesus came to show us. He's exalted today at the right hand of God, he is Lord of Lords, he's King of Kings, his name is higher than anybody else's, but how did he get there? He humbled himself even to death on a cross. And the Apostle Paul, he says, "I made Jesus my example and I've lived my own life that way," in fact he says, writing to the Romans, he says, "I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel." I don't know if you ever thought about that verse. Moses does the same thing in the Old Testament, he says, "Wipe me out of your book of life, but let the people of God live and carry on." How many of us would be willing to say, "Lord, send me to hell if need be so that my child can be saved, that my neighbor can be saved, that my enemy can be saved while we were yet enemies Christ died for us," says the Scripture. Not that we were such nice people that we were dying for, no, while we were still the messiest of them all, Christ died for us for the glory of God. And so Scripture says that's the model, that's the life God wants to reproduce in us. Again, writing to the Romans, I believe Paul puts it this way, "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his own good to build him up, even as Christ did not please himself. But as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen upon me." What does it mean to eat and drink, to do whatever you do for the glory of God? It means you lay aside all your own rights so that somebody who is weaker in the faith can actually find his or her footing and grow in Christ. Now, obviously, raises huge questions about boundary issues, doesn't it? Am I just to be a doormat? Am I just to be passive? Do I never fight back? Do I never stand up for what's right? Well, perhaps, Lord willing, we can come back to that next week and look at the Scriptures and look again at the example of Jesus and at the example of Paul. Because I think in the two of them, you will find a perfect balance between on the one hand laying down their lives so that the last and the lost and the least can come to salvation. And yet, on the other hand, I think we'll find that when they are confronted by evil and when there is wrong, they stand for God even when it costs them their life. Because you see, again, it's not about them. It's about God and the well-being of God's people. God with me as we close in prayer. Lord we look at a Scripture like this and we try to apply it to our own lives and we think of all the places where it's about me and not about you and not about others. And then we acknowledge again how much we need you. And that's why we're so grateful for Jesus because he's not only come to give us an example of what this looks like, he's come to work it out in our hearts and in our lives by the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And so Lord we pray today that as we move into this week, that in those moments where we have to make choices between following the flesh and following heart after the Spirit, that by your Spirit your word will ring in our minds and by your Spirit our hearts will be convicted and we will be motivated and we will learn how to take up our cross and we will follow Jesus. Because Lord we want to give glory to you, not just in our eating and drinking, but in everything that we do. And then Lord when we hit those places where we don't know whether we ought to just let go or to stand firm, then we pray that you will teach us love with wisdom, with discernment. Show us Lord when to hug and when to slug. Show us when to lay down our lives knowing that that's what it takes to bring somebody else to salvation and when to draw the line in the sand and say no more, this is not for your good or God's glory, stop it. And then help us to grow up as a community that is so filled with your wisdom and with your love that together we grow up to be more and more like Jesus for the glory of God. We pray it in his name, amen. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:36:42.060; remove through 00:42:28.000] As we all bow down, as we all come, casting off our crowns, would you hear our cry? We want to see you glorify. As we all bow down, as we all come, casting off our crowns, would you hear our cry? We want to see you glorify. We want to see you glorify, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name. We want to see you glorify. As we all bow down, as we all come, casting off our crowns, would you hear our cry? We want to see you glorify, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name. We want to see you glorify, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name. As we all bow down, as we all come, casting off our crowns, would you hear our cry? We want to see you glorify, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name. The earth will be filled with glory, like water or the sea, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name, we want to see you glorify, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name, we want to see you glorify, glorify your name, glorify your name, glorify your name, we want to see you glorify, we want to see you glorify, we want to see you glorify, we want to see you glorify. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:42:28.000; resume after this marked segment]