Living For Gods Glory.avi

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. One 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 things giving, why
am I denounced because of something I think 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. 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 and 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 of the 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, less 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 to
chapters earlier in one 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, but
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, where no worse off
if we do not eat and where 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 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 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 offense 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 offense 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 sacrifice 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 to those rights so that we
will not cause you to stumble. I look back on 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 but was at stake as a
matter of fact we lost one family over it ironically enough they went to a
church where they serve grape juice rather than wine and I say consistency
though art or rare virtue. It means too that if there are certain activities
that I think is a Christian I may freely enjoy sports activities perhaps or
certain movies that I want or particular types of entertainment that that
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 means too that when you come to
church and you've got your favorite place to sit oh aren't we like cows in
this 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 when when when other people come to a church community who don't
necessarily share your values because their background is different or or their
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 the 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 seeing 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 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 the 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 a 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 as 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 Brae Buff 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 1,250 miles inland to
evangelize the Huron tribes of the Indian the Indian urine 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 tried 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 Brae Buff got 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 second
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 go on 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 one 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 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 were afraid of authority and were 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
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 untrue 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 and this is what Jesus is
inviting and calling them to do what do you think is the big obstacle that you're
running to 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
whether 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 there and 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
everyone 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 Lord 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 may
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 dying for us says
the scripture not that we were such nice people that were worth 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
were strong on to bear with the failings of the week 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 stand with me as we close in breath 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 in
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 hard 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 went to hug and went to slug show us when to lay down our lives knowing but
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
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
your name glorify your name glorify your name glorify your name
we want to see you glorify
as we join as one as we live to let your kingdom come for the through one last
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 glorify your name
glorify your name glorify your name glorify your name
glorify your name glorify your name glorify your name glorify your name
glorify your name glorify your name
glorify your name glorify your name glorify your name
we want to see you glorify glorify glorify your name glorify your name
we want to see you glorify we want to see you glorify we want to see you glorify