Living For Gods Glory II

Well, I left you last week with a question that of doing everything for the glory of
God in the context of one Corinthians chapter 10, means laying aside my perfectly legitimate
freedoms in the Lord for the well-being of another.
Does that mean, then, that I should observe no personal boundaries?
But I just allow people to run over me rough-shod, never fight back, and just live to please
other people.
And at first glance, that is clearly a possible interpretation given to this particular
passage, because listen again to how Paul puts it, he says, "Do not cause anyone to stumble,
whether Jews, Greeks, or the Church of God, pretty comprehensive group of people, even
he says, as I try to please everybody in every way, for I'm not seeking my own good, but
the good of many so that they may be saved."
He says, "As I try to please everybody in every way."
The question then is, "Is that really how God wants us to live and what does that look
like?"
Because there are people who believe that the highest value of a Christian is not to cause
anybody to take offense, and that our greatest mark of discipleship is that we go out of
our way to please everybody, as Paul puts it in this passage.
And as I said, he talks about Jews, and he talks about Greeks, and he talks about the Church
of God.
That's just about everybody that you can possibly think of.
And as I said, there are people who feel that way.
There are people who would say to a woman who is married to a very difficult man that
is a Christian woman she ought to infinitely put up with his behavior.
There are those who would say to a youngster living in a very dysfunctional family that
honoring a father and a mother as a Christian means that you put up with all kinds of abusive
behavior.
And there are those who think that when a Christian finds himself in the context of
a difficult experience of the highest value is to keep on smiling and to just never cause
any waves or ripples.
After all, aren't we called to be imitators of Christ and isn't that what Jesus did?
Well, in the course of the message this morning we're going to discover that's not exactly
what Jesus did.
He was very selective in how he did it, but let's pursue that kind of lifestyle for just
a moment.
I don't know if you've ever known people who have made it their business to live for
the pleasure of other people.
I can guarantee you that long-term that kind of lifestyle is not sustainable.
Because if your greatest value is to keep other people happy and ever to cause a ripple
in their lives or in their relationships, I can tell you that what will happen to you
in the long-term is that you will lose your soul.
You will lose your identity.
I'll never forget listening to a talk given by Lynn Hybold.
She's the wife of Bill of Willough Creek fame.
Her talk was entitled "I died to self and self almost died."
And she recounted the story of how as a pastor's wife, she had grown up with the expectation
that you're supposed to be what everybody is expecting you to be.
You know, cause no trouble, cause no difficulty for your husband's ministry and you're just
to be the perfect Christian.
And she discovered pretty soon along the way that she lost her own soul.
She lost her own identity because the more you try to adapt to what everybody else wants
you to be, the more you lose who you are.
Because you know as well as I do that there are as many expectations in Christian community
as there are people.
And everybody has a different idea of what your fashions ought to be.
Everybody has a different idea of what your values ought to be.
And you start listening to that.
You lose your soul.
As a matter of fact, I'll go so far as to say that if your primary value in life is believing
that it is your business never to cause anybody any of your fans and that everybody should
always be happy with you, you're going to do one or two things.
You're going to become passive aggressive or you're going to throw in the towel on the
other end of the spectrum.
To be passive aggressive means that you allow people to walk all over you until you can
take it no more and then all of a sudden you snap.
And I don't know how many of you have been following the trial in Toronto of Melissa Lewis.
She's the woman who from the back seat of the car stabbed her longtime boyfriend as your
main Gillespie in the neck with a 12-inch knife and killed him.
And that trial has been on the go for a little while.
And just late Friday night if you can believe it, she was found not guilty of second-degree
murder.
An amazing verdict in my opinion is I have been following because these two have been
together for quite a number of years, they had at the time or they still have together
with daughter who is now about seven years of age and it's been a very rocky relationship
and he's been very unfaithful to her and very abusive to her and she's been very clingy.
And so they were driving in the car together, he was driving, her father was in the passenger
seat, she was in the back seat together with her daughter.
They get at it together back and forth and finally she can take it no more, she reaches
under his seat where there is a knife and she stabs him in the neck while he's driving.
It's not a good thing to do when you're driving a car, a car crashed understandably and
he bled to death very quickly.
But there you have passive aggressive, she takes it and takes it and takes it until all
of us sudden she blows and can take it no more.
And I've known lots of people in Christian community that have been like that.
They smile their way through life, they're friendly, everything is good, but eventually
it becomes too much and they snap and when that happens of course then you feel so badly
afterwards that you've lost it, that you determine never again are you going to do?
And now you hold it longer and longer and longer until the pressure becomes greater and
greater and greater and then you blow up all over again and it becomes a cycle that is
highly destructive because you're not being who you are.
And if you're not passive aggressive then you come to a point where well you just can
take it any more anyway.
And so you just determine that following Jesus doesn't really work, caring for other people
doesn't really work because you get hurt all the time so you close off your heart and
now you just become cold-hearted and you begin living for yourself.
And how many people don't you know who at some fundamental level of life have shut down
their hearts and it's all about them and outwardly they still profess to be followers of
Jesus but inwardly their heart is as cold as it can possibly be.
Am I making sense?
That's what happens if you believe pleasing people and not causing trouble in other people's
lives is the highest value of your life.
It is not sustainable.
You become a jackal and hide.
I even know some people who have those different responses in different parts of their personality.
And so most of the time they are a certain way until they have been triggered can't do
it anymore and then all of a sudden you wouldn't recognize them for who they are.
I'm convinced that's why sometimes you get people accused of crimes and everybody says
well I didn't know that person was capable of that.
Well the fact of the matter is that's only one part of that person's personality usually
hidden, usually under control but given the right circumstances it gets triggered.
So here's the question then and I belabor this point because I want us to see how practical
this gets, the question then is how do we honor this scripture of not causing people
to stumble and pleasing them in every way that we can for their good and not lose their
own soul in the process.
And part of the key I believe is to understand that this admonition that we have read about
here in one Corinthians chapter 10 is geared to a specific group of people called the
weaker brother.
But throughout scripture in addition to the weaker brother or sister of course there
are two other groups of people who also need to be taken into consideration and that would
be the mature brother or sister and the false brother or sister.
And I submit to you this morning that each of these three groups get handled differently
as you try to follow Jesus and imitate his example.
So in the time that we have let me see how far we can get, let me try to walk you through
what the difference is between each of these groups and what our responsibility as God's
children is to each of these groups of people.
First of all then the weaker brother or as I said the weaker sister, we talked about
them last week, let me expand on it just a little bit.
A person who obviously is not mature in Christ and whose faith can be lost.
If by your example he is encouraged into a form of behavior that his conscience cannot
bear.
I'll come back to that in a moment or two.
But the weaker brother is weak according to the Apostle Paul because he is weak in four
specific areas.
Stick with me as I try to walk you through that.
First of all he is weak in faith.
Listen to these verses from Romans chapter 14, accept him whose faith is weak.
Without passing judgment on disputable matters one man's faith allows him to eat anything
but another man whose faith is weak eats only vegetables.
When the passage then goes on, I need to add verse 23, the man who doubts is condemned
if he eats because his eating is not from faith and everything that does not come from faith
is sin.
Listen to that very carefully again.
Something that does not come from faith is sin.
It's a very interesting verse because what Paul is saying there is if you participate
in an activity that you do not believe 100% in your heart is permitted by God then stepping
into that for you is sin.
And so if you think it is wrong to drink a glass of wine with your meal even though others
might think that is perfectly legitimate for you to do that would be sin.
I'm going to use LC for an example here.
There was a day when LC when she first came to this church believed it was a sin to eat
in a church building.
Wasn't that true LC?
That's the background that LC came from.
LC in Christian circles is to say, well, get over yourself, there's nothing wrong with
it.
No scripture says that if your faith does not allow you to do something, if nevertheless
you do it, you are sinning against God and we'll talk more later about why it is.
So a weaker believer does not have the faith to believe or to understand who he or she
is in Christ and therefore is limited in what they can step into.
Secondly a weak believer is limited or weak in knowledge but not everyone knows this.
This is in the context that idols aren't real.
Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of
it as having been sacrificed to an idol and since their conscience is weak it is defiled.
Knowledge means knowing the truth of who we are in Christ and when you first become a
believer your knowledge of the truth is limited in Paul says in this context, a new believer
doesn't know that these idols that we worship in the temple they're just things made of stone
and wood they're not real because only God is real.
Thirdly he says a weak believer is weak in conscience.
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?
When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience you see
in against Christ.
Now again listen very carefully, your conscience is that of an internal voice that tells you
what is right from what is wrong.
Your conscience is shaped by your knowledge.
Your knowledge may be limited and therefore your conscience can be wrongly instructed.
Lot of people don't understand that.
In this context their conscience is told them it's wrong to eat meat that has been sacrificed
to an idol and their conscience is told them it's wrong to do certain things on the Sabbath
because that's the other big issue in the New Testament.
Is the Sabbath day they be kept holy like it was in the Old Testament or is it a day like
any other?
Now here's the point, whatever your conscience dictates whether your conscience is right or
wrong do not violate your conscience because if you violate your conscience you sin.
That's a very interesting teaching why?
Because it's the only thing that you have internally that keeps you on track and if you
learn to violate or ignore your conscience it's very difficult to know internally whether
what you're doing is right or wrong.
And the antidote to a weak conscience is knowledge and faith.
It's to be instructed in knowing what is right as opposed to knowing what is wrong.
So a weak believer is weak in faith doesn't fully know what God will accept is weak in knowledge
doesn't understand fully is weak in conscience and then says Paul is weak in willpower.
If anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating an idol's
temple won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols and remember that's
a context here.
He doesn't think you should be eating meat offered to idols because of the past association
with demonic powers but he sees you and mature Christian eating in the temple and he says
well if you can do it I can do it and now he violates his conscience and he sins against
God and he will feel guilty and he will be driven away from God as opposed to what's
God.
Am I making sense here?
That is a weak brother and so a weak brother can be defined like this.
A Christian who because of the weakness of his faith knowledge, conscience and will can
be influenced to sin against his conscience by the example of a differing stronger brother
and Paul says don't.
What's your obligation?
Your obligation as a stronger brother is to lay aside your rights in order not to make
that person stumble and remember stumbling here doesn't mean he's just going to be irritated
with me and he doesn't like what I'm doing you know stumbling means he's encouraged
into an activity that will drive him away from God and that will wound his conscience
and will affect his spiritual walk.
Paul says if it's up to you just ignore your freedom for the sake of your weaker brother.
As I said last week of that means you don't drink your glass of wine or you don't eat
meat offered to idols or participate in any legitimate activity that will somehow or
another detract from his walk in faith in God.
That's your obligation as a stronger older brother or sister in Christ.
That's what it means to imitate Christ even as Paul was an imitator of Christ but not
everybody is a weaker brother.
There are also those who are mature believers, a mature brother or sister or a convinced
brother or sister and understandably they're strong or at least stronger in the same four
areas where the weaker brother or sister is weak.
Again let me walk you through that as quickly as I can.
Most of all they are mature according to Scripture or more mature in faith.
One man's faith allows him to eat everything but another man whose faith is weak eats only
vegetables.
Here is a man who knows that the kingdom of God does not consist of eating or drinking.
Paul says in other places you know what you eat or what you drink isn't going to do
for you, the kingdom of God is love, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.
And whether you eat this or whether you eat that as long as you do it for the glory of
God it really doesn't matter.
So there are people who have faith that that's how it is before God.
They're mature in faith, they're also mature in knowledge.
Notice again how he puts it.
We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one.
So notice the difference.
The immature believer says that idol is in touch with demonic powers and I don't want
to get close to it because they could wipe me out.
The mature Christian says well you know there may be demonic powers behind that idol but
God is the only true God, he is the only one that I'm afraid of so I can live before
his face and I know, I know that I know who I am in Christ and the provisions that God
has made for me so I don't fear what the rest of the world fears.
Then mature in conscience.
Christ is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves.
Notice to say here is a man whose conscience now has been shaped by scripture, has been
shaped by knowledge, has been shaped by faith and he knows what is the right thing to
do and so he can do these and we're not talking about sin here.
He's understanding we're talking about these gray areas of Christian liberty.
Those areas where the Christian says it's okay for me to participate in this particular
activity so he's following his conscience and his conscience has been shaped by scripture.
And then of course he is also mature in willpower that is to say he has, he's not swaying
by anybody and everybody.
We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the week and not to please ourselves.
Each of us should please his neighbor for his good to build him up and so now I'm not swayed
by the people around me.
I don't do what they're doing just because they're doing it no no I know what is right.
I know what God has called me to be and God has called me to do and I have control over
my will and I can say I'm not going to do this though I have the right to do it because
I'm not going to make my weaker brother stumble.
And so a stronger or a mature Christian can be defined like this.
I'm a sure brother or sister is a Christian who because of his or her understanding of
Christian freedom and the strength of his conviction exercises his liberty with full
piece of conscience without being improperly influenced by the different differing opinions
of others.
In other words he doesn't worry about being blown off the track because you believe
otherwise are you practice something differently?
And so how do we relate to a mature brother or sister?
Well, it goes like this, I don't have to worry about giving offence to that particular
person by these great areas of life because he or she is mature isn't going to be blown
out of the water, won't lose their faith over who I am or what I do.
So first of all I can afford to be myself because you see in the kingdom of God God wants
us to be ourselves.
The beauty of God's creation and redemption is that no two snowflakes are alike and no
two believers are alike.
And you don't have to rub shoulders with other believers for very long before you discover
there are many, many areas that good Christian people disagree on, a Gary freezing in his
book called decision making and the will of God.
Our lists of about three dozen areas were in his own experience.
God's people have had different opinions about what Christian behavior ought to look like,
and I'll name just a couple of them attending movies.
I remember when I was growing up my older brother got into huge trouble with my father because
my father had found out that he had taken a date to a drive-in theater.
And some of you will remember how sinful going to the movies was back then.
We've probably gone too far the other way today, but in those days that was a big issue.
I remember in my own lifetime that when television first came out people who were on the forefront
of having televisions in their home were looked down upon in the church as being significantly
sinful people.
I remember the day when driving your bicycle on Sunday was wrong, and a lot of you will
still think cutting the grass on Sunday is not something.
In fact every time I hear a lawnmower in my neighborhood on Sunday I got a little self-righteous
in my heart even though I know better.
Stephen here is confessing his sin to cutting his grass on Sunday.
Drinking wine in moderation he talks about, cooking with wine, participating in contact
sports.
Here's L.C.'s eating food in a church building, that was a big issue for you at one point.
Paul playing cards, I remember, in the family that grew up in playing cards was a sinful
activity.
I've told you before, consistency is an amazing rare thing because my father when he was
growing up would play dominoes with his family and friends and they'd play it for money.
And nobody saw the inconsistency of that.
There's another one, and again a lot of you in this generation won't even think of this
by buying insurance, no offense, Harold.
But there was a day that a good Christian had serious conscience qualms about buying insurance,
you know why?
Because it meant you were entrusting gone.
Same thing with inoculation.
When our family came across the boat and everybody had to be inoculated for smallpox, our family
was not inoculated and we get into the country without inoculation and the argument was
for religious reasons.
Nobody today, very few would think of that today but that shows you how values and things
change.
It used to be a big issue, probably ought to be a bigger issue than what it is today sometimes,
wearing pantsuits to church for women.
Using a Bible translation other than the King James Version, you all know of people who
would raising tobacco.
You've heard me tell this story before, a pastor that I know grew up in a pretty legalistic
environment where Christians simply did not smoke and he was invited down south in the
U.S. in the tobacco growing belt to preach to the church.
So he's driving to this church for this appointment and when he gets out of his car he runs into
there, stand all the men of the church in their big black suits, smoke in these huge cigars.
And he says to himself and he says to the Lord, "Lord, I'm not going to preach in this
church because there isn't a one Christian among them."
I mean, you cannot be a Christian and smoke, at least not that size of a cigar.
So he doesn't know what to do, so he comes out of his car, walks towards the church and
one of those men ice him, comes over to him and says, "Is that your car?"
Did you drive to this church in this car?
Yes, I did.
Well, he says, "Nobody who drives a car in the sap of this is going to preach in my church."
There you got it.
So God's people are a funny lot.
But with mature Christians, you don't just stop doing what you're doing because somebody
doesn't like it.
You are who you are before God.
You're always aware of what is for the good of your neighbor, but a mature Christian is
not going to lose his faith just because he is irritated with you by what you're doing
or wearing or going.
More than that, you can engage each other because iron, sharpen iron.
You can have discussions as the King James Version, the only inspired version.
What does the Bible really teach about cutting your grass on Sunday or riding your bicycle
to church or even about playing cards or going to the movies?
There are principles involved in all of this.
Some are good, some are bad, but you can engage each other.
And over the years, God's people have had lively debates and discussions in good ways
to try to get at the bottom of some of these areas where we differ.
And then of course, and here's the important thing.
You give freedom to each other to live your life before the face of God.
Romans chapter 14, these verses, the verses one through four, I find a very instructive
in this regard, except him whose faith is weak.
Without passing judgment on indisputable matters, one man's faith allows him to eat everything,
but another man whose faith is weak eats only vegetables, the man who eats everything
must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must
not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him.
Who are you to judge someone else's servant to his own master?
He stands or falls, and he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand.
Very interesting passage.
We're not talking now about things the Bible calls sin.
We're talking about disputable matters.
We're talking about this gray area where one person sees it one way, another person sees
it another way, and you think, well, we can both be right.
Well, Paul says, in fact, you could both be right, because it depends on the strength
of your faith, it depends on the strength of your knowledge, it depends on the strength
of your conscience, and it depends on the strength of your will.
And so, if God has accepted you for where you are, then you need to accept other believers
in those places knowing that if their heart's desire is to serve the Lord, then the Lord
will straighten them out as they grow up in Christ.
I have learned over the years, don't sweat the small stuff.
Frankly, I don't care what you do in a lot of areas in your life as long as I know that
your heart is committed to Jesus.
Because if you are committed to Jesus by His Word and by His Spirit, He'll straighten
you out in all the areas that you need to be straightened out in as time goes on because
it takes time to grow up in Christ.
Don't sweat the small stuff.
And to give you a scripture that goes along with that, Philippians 3.15, let those of us
who are mature be thus-minded, this is in the context of food, and have in anything you
who are otherwise-minded, God will reveal that to you also.
Practical example of how this has worked in my life and in Dave Bonding's life.
You know how over the years the issue of women in leadership in the church has been a highly
contentious issue and our own denomination has taken 20 or 30 years to come to a place
where we are and we've lost about 25% of the membership into denomination over the
issue.
Not just because people are difficult and stubborn, but rather because the scriptures
give some pretty clear indication in different directions and people have had very different
interpretations over.
And there was a day, you know, 20 years ago or more, when Dave and I would have been
on opposite ends of the spectrum with regard to the place of women as elders particularly
or primary leaders in the church, less 20 years ago.
Today I can confidently say that we can cross each other's teeth and dot each other's
eyes where that close in our understanding of what those varying scriptures mean and
what's really intriguing to me is we've come to that mutual conclusion without hardly
ever having had a discussion or a Bible study over it.
Dave is an enter.
You know why, because as Dave grows in Christ, as I grow in Christ, as God gives us understanding
about the scriptures through the Holy Spirit in the context of Christian community, guess
what happens?
God makes His people of one heart, of one mind and one spirit because He reveals to us
the truth and now you're all going to say what is your conclusion and not so stupid this
morning to try to step into that one, thank you very much.
But you understand what I'm saying?
There will be many people that you rub shoulders with who will disagree with you as a Christian
on how you live life and that's particularly true for those of us who have been raised
in a religious environment and those who are newer believers who have come into the community
from the outside because you don't necessarily have the same training or background.
Very easy to look down on each other.
Very easy to say, well, I've got it better than you.
God says don't.
Don't sit in judgment.
If God thinks you're good enough, then I better think that you're good enough.
If God has welcomed you, I better welcome you and though we can engage each other and
we can discuss things with each other and we can grow up in Christ together, we can trust
the Word and we can trust the Holy Spirit to lead us into a place of common understanding
and common growth for the glory of God.
Now that's where it's at in terms of the stronger brother.
I don't have to worry about making you stumble.
I don't have to worry about adapting my life so that you're not irritated with me.
I can live who I'm called to be before God and we both have to learn to leave each other
in God's hands knowing that God will grow us up and bring us to maturity.
Once we're going to leave it, Lord willing, if we come back to this, there remains a
third category and that's the false brother, the false sister and that is a bird of an
entirely different feather.
Stand with me as we pray.
Where do we laugh sometimes about our foibles?
But we know that our foibles arise not just out of our own sinfulness and out of our
immaturity but out of a deep and honest conviction of what it means to honor you.
And it's hard for us to understand that somebody else might be honoring you when they live
in ways that are somewhat different from our ways.
And we pray, Lord, for enlarged hearts and for our enlarged understanding.
We pray that each of us may grow in faith, that each of us may grow in knowledge, that
each of us may strengthen our consciences before you and that each of us may grow in willpower.
So that, Lord, we may elect before your face to live in ways that honor you.
And give us faith to believe that what you've accomplished in our lives, you will also
accomplish in the lives of others, give us hearts, Lord, that aren't asking how much
can I get away with and still call myself a Christian.
But give us hearts that say, Lord, how can I love you more?
And how can I love my neighbor more?
And how can I lay down my life in ways that were really blessed other people and help them
in their journey towards God?
And Lord, we'll be careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name
and we pray.
And Lord, we'll be careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name
and we'll be careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and
we will be careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll
be careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
careful to give you glory through Jesus Christ, yet it's in His name and we'll be
(gentle music)