Among the Ruins

We thought that was a kind of catchy series title - among the ruins.

That’s where we live right now, really.

We live among the ruins of a formerly Christian America.

Joe Lieberman - anyone remember Joe Lieberman?

He was a Senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013 and he was Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 election.

He was a Democrat, then an Independent Democrat but he got into a bit of hot water when he endorsed John McCain - a Republican for president in 2008.

He’s also Jewish.

Last Tuesday, former Senator Lieberman wrote an op-ed for Fox News titled, “America needs a new religious awakening.”

In his piece he speaks of the Jewish days of “teshuva” - repentance.

He says, “During the Ten Days of Repentance, Jews are called to consider their behavior during the preceding year and to repent for the occasions when we have acted wrongly which is to say outside the code of law and values that the Bible requires of us.”

He continues, “Focusing on faith to get us out of the morass America is now in is thoroughly consistent with our national history and purpose. Remember that the Pilgrims who left England to escape the religious persecution of the King believed their mission was to establish a new Jerusalem in the land they were destined for across the Atlantic. When they landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, William Brewster recited a psalm of thanksgiving to God. In the Declaration of Independence, with which American history began, our founders wrote that they were forming their new independent nation to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which are the endowment of God, our Creator.”

He quotes George Washington, “Of all the disciplines and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.”

Senator Lieberman ends by saying, “America needs a new religious awakening.”

Why would a Jewish Democrat invoke the Christian foundation of America and call for a new “religious awakening?”

Because he realizes, we live among the ruins of a formerly Christian America.

The great moral shift we are seeing now didn’t just start.

It’s been happening for a long, long time.

During President Obama’s term as president, he held a news conference with the leader of Turkey.

Trying to stress how the United States could ally itself with Turkey, President Obama said:

“That is a great strength of the United States, although we have a large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens.”

A lot of us really got our feathers ruffled by that statement, but what he said was not untrue.

We live among the ruins of a formerly Christian America.

You can see this in the way we talk about abortion.

One of the candidates for governor of Georgia has a campaign commercial that is very pro-abortion.

She talks about reproductive rights, reproductive justice.

She says with “our righteous might, good will be won.”

What is the good that will be done?

Well, what does a woman want when she has an abortion?

The literal answer is to be un-pregnant.

But I think the actual answer is much more than that.

She wants to have the ability to flourish.

To reach the hopes, dreams and aspirations that she holds for herself.

Why would I say that?

The Guttmacher Institute is a group that says they specialize in women’s reproductive rights.

They track abortion statistics and compile data on why women seek abortions.

In one of the candidates campaign ads, she has some very angry women hitting the abortion hot buttons of rape and incest.

I can’t understand the mental anguish that would come from such a thing.

Horribly and mercifully, less than 1% of all abortions are for those reasons.

74% happen because the baby will affect the mother’s education, work or ability to care for dependents.

73% stated they couldn’t afford a baby.

48% said they didn’t want to be a mom and were having relationship troubles.

40% didn’t want more children.

33% said they weren’t ready for a baby.

All of those answers point to the same thing - I will not flourish if I carry this baby to term.

And I want to flourish.

And I should have a right to flourish.

But here’s where we start to see the mists of our former Christianity in our thinking.

What gives us any idea that we should have a right to flourish?

Yes the Declaration of Independence has that famous phrase about us having the right to “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but where did that come from?

Yes, I’ve read that Jefferson may have picked the phrase up from John Locke, or Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

But where would they pick up such an idea?

Surely it didn’t come from Darwinian evolution?

That theory talks about natural selection or the survival of the fittest.

The one with the best ability to reproduce and protect itself might flourish.

But not everyone flourishes in that world.

Somebody has to be lunch - somebody else has to fertilizer.

So if it’s not from science, where did the notion that we have a right to flourish - where did it come from?

We talked about this verse during our Lamentations study that just about every parent uses for their high school graduate.

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

This is God’s ultimate goal for His people.

Sounds like flourishing, doesn’t it?

Or maybe here, Genesis 1:28-30

Genesis 1:28–30 ESV

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Again, sounds like flourishing doesn’t it?

Maybe we could even go here - remember us talking about this?

When John the Baptist questioned Jesus, what did Jesus say?

Matthew 11:5 ESV

the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

Again, sounds like flourishing.

It’s what people want and it’s what people strive to achieve.

They simply have no clue where it comes from.

They are walking among the ruins of a formerly Christian America.

They want the result God wants for His people.

But they don’t understand that to have it, we must submit to God’s authority.

Joe Lieberman is right.

We do need a religious awakening in America.

That’s one of the things Paul will deal with in 1 Corinthians.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 we hear Paul say:

1 Corinthians 6:9–10 ESV

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Another way to say “will not inherit the kingdom of God” is to say “they will not flourish.”

The Lord says the key to human flourishing is in something Jesus said:

Mark 8:34 ESV

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

That’s how we flourish.

What in the world does denying oneself have to do with abortion?

Do I need to explain that?

See, a woman - and a man’s - right to choose starts way before the baby is created.

It starts before the man and the woman meet really.

It starts when the man and the woman follow Jesus with all of their heart, purposing in their heart to be faithful to their spouse, even before they have any prospects of a spouse.

Then, when temptation does arise - and yo buddy it will - you make your choice.

There is your choice.

And should the temptation overcome you - yes, you can receive forgiveness if you earnestly repent.

But you also accept the consequences - whatever those might be.

That’s why Christians fighting against abortion isn’t the full answer.

Fighting to make our “fellow citizens” brothers and sisters - that’s the answer.

That is the cure for abortion.

In our country right now, there is at least one generation, maybe two that believe they have “certain unalienable rights.”

However, they don’t understand the “endowed by their creator,” part.

We’ve got to help them.

We’ve got to know what we are talking about so we can help them know what they need to be talking about.

So we are going to walk Among the Ruins for a few months of a place most of us have never been physically.

In the New Testament, Paul wrote a letter we call 1st Corinthians.

He wrote it to a church he planted in the city of Corinth.

Corinth was a very old city, even in Paul’s day.

Archeologists have found tools dating back to the 2,000’s B.C.

The city flourished for years but ran afoul of Rome around 144 BC and simply got decimated.

But then Rome rebuilt it and Corinth became a hub of commerce and art.

Corinth was blessed by its geography.

It’s located in the southern portion of Greece and it was almost on an island except

Can you see that little bitty sliver of land that connects Corinth to the mainland?

That little isthmus turned Corinth into a powerhouse.

You see, the seas south of Greece were extremely treacherous.

They were prone to violent storms that would seem like they came out of nowhere.

And ships wrecked regularly, cargo was lost - sailors died.

But someone discovered that you could take harbor on the side of the mainland opposite Corinth.

And you could unpack your ship, put your merch on carts and drive it across that little spit of land.

You could do some buying and selling in Corinth

And those folks would take the goods they purchased from you and take it to ships on the Sparta side.

And your ship didn’t sink and the crew didn’t die and you made a lot of money.

If their city existed in 2022, this is the map the tour guide would give you on the trolley tour.

This is a picture from the Logos software I use for sermon prep.

Notice they have a north mall, a south mall, and a west mall - if you can see the numbers

Those are number 8 on the left and number 13 on the right and number 15 in the upper left corner.

Number 12 is the temple of Apollo.

Apollo was the Greek god of sun and light, music and poetry.

“He is harmony, reason, and moderation personified, a perfect blend of physical superiority and moral virtue,” according to GreekMythology.com.

People really liked Apollo.

The Sanctuary of Athena is number 14, just above the temple of Apollo.

She was the goddess of battle strategy and wisdom.

She was accompanied by the goddess of victory - and many of you are in love with her today.

Athena’s goddess friend is named - Nike.

All of your Nike sportswear - yep, the goddess of victory.

Number 10 is the statue of Poseidon.

He’s the god of water, earthquakes and horses.

His name means “lord of the earth.”

Most everybody in town worshipped at one or more of those temples.

As a matter of fact, every Greek person who became a part of the Corinthian church was once a worshipper at one of those temples.

It would been how they were raised.

Now, that sounds like a whole lot of crazy, doesn’t it?

All of those different gods - it’s obvious they weren’t very civilized because they had so many folks that believed all kinds of crazy things.

If you went to Corinth today, this is what you’d see of the original city.

That’s the temple of Apollo in the middle.

This is the up close view of the temple of Apollo.

Those folks had to have some skill, didn’t they?

You don’t construct things like that unless you had something on the ball.

Those columns have stood for over 2,000 years.

Betcha the Taco Bell and Jack’s buildings aren’t here in 2,000 years.

One of the commentators said, “When you think of Corinth, think of Atlanta, or Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or Chicago, or New York City.

So, you know me, I looked up religions in Fulton County, Georgia - you know - downtown Atlanta.

First off, there are 67 Christian denominations in Fulton County.

Atlanta has Buddhists, and Christian Scientists.

Two varieties of Latter-Day Saints, multiple Jewish groups.

There is a group of Zoroastrians.

3 denominations of Hindus.

Muslims, Taoists, Siks, and Unitarian Universalists.

In all there are 755 congregations representing 87 various denominations and religions, having at least 655,000 congregants of the 1.05 million that live in Fulton County.

Oh, and don’t leave out the atheists and agnostics.

So I want you to think about, every time you go to Emory.

Every time you go to Northside.

Every time you go to a Braves Game, the High Museum of Art, Symphony Hall.

The Fernbank Science Center.

Georgia State,

Georgia Tech,

The Varsity.

Every time you order a chili dog, onion rings and a frosted orange, you have no clue who you are standing beside.

Zoroastrians know a good hot dog when they taste one too.

Corinth doesn’t have the corner on diversity.

We are right there with them.

One more bit of history and we’ll move on.

Can you see number 16 just under the word Corinth?

That’s the Odeion.

It’s a theatre that had a capacity of 3,000 people.

That’s where they held their equivalent of America’s Got Talent.

They had music and rhetoric competitions there.

I suspect when Paul came to Corinth, he eventually ended up on that stage at some point.

They would have been curious about what he had to say.

Paul didn’t go to Corinth by accident - he went by design.

That’s where met Aquila and Priscilla - and his friend Sosthenes who you’ll hear about in a moment, got beat up.

Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half.

He planted a church there.

And then he left to preach in other cities.

Time passed and things went on - and the people in the church who had been raised in these other religions.

Well, it appears they started adding a little bit of what they had with Apollo with a little bit of Jesus.

The church starting looking a lot like - well Atlanta, with 67 Christian denominations.

It started to look a lot like the culture it lived in - and churches aren’t supposed to do that.

Actually, the culture is supposed to start looking like the church.

Chloe’s people got fed up with it.

They went and found Paul and told him what was going on.

And since he couldn’t drop everything and go back, he wrote them a letter.

Open your Bibles if you will to the book of 1st Corinthians.

It’s located after Acts, then Romans, then 1st Corinthians.

We’ll be reading 1st Corinthians 1:1-3 today.

Hear now the Word of the Lord:

1 Corinthians 1:1–3 ESV

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God

We all want to flourish right?

Folks living in a formerly Christian America believe it is their right to flourish.

You know what’s funny?

That’s exactly how Paul greets the church at Corinth.

Grace to you - may the Lord deal with you mercifully and bountifully in Christ.

Peace - may the Lord grant you prosperity in soul, in life, in your very being.

In other words, may God cause you to flourish.

That’s what we’re going to be talking about for the next number of months.

The Lord wants us to flourish.

We’re going to learn what it looks like to flourish.

Let us pray: