1 Cor 10:23-11:1 - Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God - Christian freedom -

Doing the do’s and avoiding the don’ts. This is our life as Christians, right? Doing what God wants and not doing what God doesn’t want. This is what we want. We want to be holy. We want to be pure. I know this is your heart’s desire. You want to give your life to the One who gave His life for you. You want to obey.

Some of our obedience comes directly from scripture. Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor. Go and make disciples. Do not steal. Do not kill. We know these. But in our desire to obey, we become a little confused about the gray areas of life, the parts that God didn’t spell out. Can we drink alcohol, or not? Can we dance, or not? What kind of music should we listen to? How should we spend our vacations? We want to obey. We want to do the right thing. We’re just not always sure what that is.

And while we’re trying to figure that out, when we’re thinking about doing the do’s and not doing the don’ts, we forget someone. Usually, when we’re trying to obey, we’re thinking of our actions following God’s will. God has commanded and we obey. It’s God and us.

But there’s someone else that needs to be remembered. This isn’t just a line with two points, God and me, God and you. This is a triangle. There’s God, there’s you, and then there’s the person watching you. There’s your neighbor watching you obey God. There’s your neighbor hearing you speak about God. And how we obey God, how we work to be holy, can affect the person watching us.

Sometimes, how you live your life can be inspiring. People will watch how you spend your retirement and know that you’re obeying a higher calling than the simply to pack the most fun into the years you have left. People will watch how you grieve, and they will know that you know something they don’t, that there is a life that continues forever and ever, and that you will see your husband or your wife or your mom or dad or child again. People will watch how you spend your money, and they’ll know it’s not your money that you’re spending. It belongs to someone else. You’re just using it. How we live our lives can draw people closer to our Savior Jesus.

But sometimes, how we live our lives can actually drive people farther away. And it’s not just when we’re disobeying. We can actually drive people farther away when we’re trying to do good. We can paint a picture of God that does not accurately describe Him. We can make Him look like a demanding God rather than a gracious God, which is not at all what God wants.

So Paul writes to us in 1 Corinthians 10. He writes, in verse 23:

The Corinthians have gotten a little off-track, and Paul is walking a tight-rope trying to get them back to the right understanding. So, he give us two sides, two boundaries that keep us going in the right direction. He even repeats himself, to make sure we get this. Everything is permissible. But not everything is upbuilding. Paul brings us through both boundaries in the rest of our text this morning. He wants us living our lives conscious of the triangle. He wants us…obeying God…being seen by others who don’t know God as well. Verse 24:

We’re not obeying to get to heaven. We’re not obeying to get God to give us good things. We’re going to heaven because of Jesus. God gives us good things because He loves us. We do good things out of gratitude to God. AND we do good things for the good of others. We obey, within these two boundaries, so that people come to know Jesus as Savior and as Lord.

First, everything is permissible. Everything is permissible. If you’re like me, you’re hearing these words, but you’re already jumping to the second part. You’re already qualifying this statement, because "everything is permissible" sounds too free. It’s sounds too easy. It’s sounds sinful. It sounds like we can just whatever we want and we don’t have to worry about it at all. And that just doesn’t sound at all Godly.

But before you do the jump, stop a moment. Don’t go too fast here. If we do that jump, we’ll skip right over God’s grace and end up in a puddle of legalism. We’ll paint a picture of God that is not a very nice picture, and people will be driven further away from our Savior.

Paul has pounced on this legalism in other places. He hates legalism. In most of his letters, he is all about grace. It’s grace that saves us, not works. It’s God’s mercy that saves us, not us doing the right thing. Paul is always talking about grace, wherever he goes. So very likely, the Corinthians have heard this kind of teaching before when he came preaching and teaching. They’ve probably heard before that "everything is permissible."

And Paul is not backing down from this. He uses a contemporary example for his time, the idea of eating meat from the meat market. Now, it’s not just that it came from the market. It’s the reason that this market even exists in the first place. This market exists to provide meat for presenting for idols. The meat from a meat market was for idol worship.

And there were a group of people, especially those who held to the Old Testament Jewish laws, that were very nervous about this. They went to great lengths to guarantee that the meat they were eating was not bought from a market and hadn’t come anywhere near an idol. They were trying to obey. They were trying to be holy.

But they were missing the point. So Paul makes the point clear, in verse 25:

For Paul, and for us, there is no separation between what is God’s and what is not God’s. There is no secular and sacred. It all belongs to God. Paul doesn’t care if the meat was sacrificed to idols. Idol’s are nothing. They have no significance, no power. So then, idols can’t have any effect on anything. It all belongs to God, and Paul is going to treat things that way.

That gives Paul an incredible amount of freedom, and maybe this makes us feel uncomfortable. We have a tendency to separate things and activities into Godly and not Godly categories. Alcohol is one. I want to be careful here, because some of us struggle with the misuse of alcohol. But God gave us alcohol as a gift. We can’t just assign it to the world. Everything is God’s. Our observance of the Sabbath Day may be another. We may separate our activities into holy and profane. Going for a Sunday drive may be Godly. But when I was growing up, swimming was profane. Some say that a certain kind of music is Godly music, and another kind is not. A certain kind of musical instrument is Godly, another kind is not. Some things are holy, and some are not.

And Paul, with that freedom that kind of makes us cringe, tells us, and then repeats to us, that everything is permissible. Don’t separate things into categories. It all belongs to God. God made the fermentation process. God made Sabbaths. God made lakes. God made grass. God made musical notes. God made instruments. It’s all God’s, which means it can all be used for God’s glory.

If we forget this freedom, and others see us forgetting this freedom, the impression of God that they will have is of a God that creates things, and then tells us not to use them. A God who is limited to a portion, and actually a very small portion, of our lives. And honestly, people don’t really want anything to do with a part-time God who just says no to the good things He’s created. Paul knows the freedom that comes from a Godly life, and He urges us to keep that freedom. Verse 27:

But the Corinthians may have gone too far. They had found that freedom, but they’d stepped beyond Godly freedom into sin. So Paul puts up the other boundary. Yes, everything is permissible. Yes, everything belongs to the Lord. But, not everything is beneficial. Not everything is upbuilding. Some actions can hurt.

He comes back to this example of eating meat offered to idols. Don’t worry about where the meat comes from, Paul tells us. But, verse 28:

Everything belongs to God, but now, in this Paul tells us not to eat. If it was just him and God, if it was just the two of them, it’s not a problem. God made the meat, Paul can eat it. But there’s someone watching, someone who does not know God like Paul does. Someone who has a weaker relationship with God. Someone who would become very confused about God if Paul exercises his freedom. This person is not holier than Paul, being so careful with the meat. This person is weaker than Paul, and his relationship with God is shaky.

So Paul says to avoid this for conscience sake. But, says verse 29:

In other words, there’s nothing wrong with drinking alcohol. God made it, and everything is permissible. But there are people watching. There are people who don’t think of alcohol as belonging to God. They think of alcohol in terms of partying and getting drunk. So they’re watching you with those thoughts in mind. For their sake, for their conscience, don’t drink.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. There is freedom regarding our Sabbaths. If it was just between us and God, there’d be no problem. But there are people watching. They know that Christians want to keep the Sabbath Day holy, and they become confused with actions that, to them, seem like they’re breaking the Sabbath. So, for their sake, for their conscience, we limit what we do.

Music was made by God, all kinds of music. If it was just us and God, it wouldn’t matter what kind of music, or musical instruments, we used to praise God. But other’s are watching. And for them, certain kinds of music bring to mind certain kinds of images. And they’re not godly images. So for their sake, for their conscience, we are careful with our use of music.

But not so careful where we lose our freedom. Paul swings back again in verse 30:

Here’s the danger. We can be so worried about not doing the wrong things that we can lose our freedom. We can end up not using what God has given to us to use. We can end up not being very grateful. This shows our attitude toward God. If God is the God who demands, who forbids, how can He be the God who saves us? How can He be the God who came and hung on a cross for us?

So, we live in freedom and we live to build up other people. We live in gratitude and we live in compassion. Verse 31:

If you drink, drink for the glory of God. What you do on Sunday, do it for the glory of God. What you listen to on your ipod, listen to it for the glory of God. Just make sure you’re staying between the boundaries. Make sure you’re keeping the freedom, while you’re building up the people watching your witness. Verse 32:

Let’s face it, this is not an easy balance to keep. It’s much easier to remove all the rules, to just do whatever you want and not worry about it. To be free, without any consideration of what our freedom is doing to others. At the same time, it’s easier to clamp down, to be more likely to say "no" then to say "yes", to put more restrictions on our activities than God Himself puts on us. It’s just easier to go to one of the two extremes. It’s hard to stay in the middle.

But it gets easier when we have a model. Paul writes, in 11:1:

Look how Jesus lived His life. He did things that a lot of people thought He shouldn’t be doing. He was going to parties with prostitutes. He was hanging out with embezzlers. He went to so many parties He gained a reputation of being a glutton. He was free. But His freedom wasn’t just for His own enjoyment. His freedom was for others. He went to parties so that sinners could know Him as Savior

At the same time, He said "No." His disciples wanted Him to set up an earthly kingdom. Jesus said "No. That wouldn’t be beneficial." 5000 people wanted Him to be king, and what a great king He would have been, much better than any Caesar or Prime Minister or President. But Jesus said, "No, it would not be upbuilding." That’s the example of Jesus that we must follow.

Honestly, this is tough. There’s no hard fast rule that I can give you, at least Paul doesn’t give us one here in 1 Corinthians 10, that fits every situation. We need the Holy Spirit to tell us what to do. Listen, we know that there are absolutes. God gives us His commandments, and those are non-negotiable. There are things we are absolutely to do, and there are things we are absolutely not to do.

But for the other things, the parts of our lives that aren’t as clear, we need the Holy Spirit to lead us toward freedom or toward restriction. We need Him to tell us what will be for the glory of God and for the salvation of many.

But to help us listen to the Spirit, we can make sure these boundaries are set strong. We have freedom. Everything is permissible. Everything, everything belongs to the Lord. But not everything is beneficial. Not everything is helpful for the salvation of those watching us. As long as our freedom doesn’t override what is beneficial, as long as what is beneficial doesn’t wipe away the freedom, we’ll be on the right track. We will eat, we will drink, we will live to the glory of God and the good of many.