Helping Other Believers Glorify God

Welcome: Welcome to the first Sunday Night program of 2023! Hopefully you all had a good winter break celebrating Christmas and the New Year.

Thank you for those who filled out surveys tonight. Before we get into the lesson for tonight, we need to draw the raffle for who won the FaireCoffee gift card.

Introduction

Recap of 1 Cor. up until this point.

Corinthians are divided over church leaders. Divided over questions about sexuality.

Here in chapter 8 we see another question that the Corinthian church is apparently divided over. Is eating food sacrificed to idols sinful?

I know that this question seems a little odd.

Insert background context here.- Corinth had a pagan culture where they worshipped physical idols. Part of this worship is to offer animal sacrifices. After the meat was cooked, some of it would be sold in the market place. This is where people could buy meat for food. So people were divided over if it was sinful to eat the meat that was sacrificed to idols.

Even though this seems odd to us here in Eureka, IL this question is similar to questions that I hear from students. The question always start off,

“Is it sinful to do _______”.

Raise your hand if you have ever had this question?

I think we’ve all asked that question sometime in our lives and here in chapter 8 we see this same type of question.

Transition statement: So let’s read together and see how Paul responds to their question.

Read 1 Cor. 8:1-6. Remember to underline anything that might be confusing or something that sticks out to you. Remember when we see quotations this means that Paul is quoting what the Corinthian church says.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 8

8 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by him.

4 About eating food sacrificed to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”—6 yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him.

Let’s pause here for a moment and try to understand how Paul is addressing this topic.

In these first 6 verses we see that the first thing to consider when asking the question “Is it sinful to do ______” is to ask what does God have to say about it.

What does God have to say about it?

1 Cor. 8:1-6.

Paul quotes what the Corinthians theology of this matter is.

Corinthian Theology about Food & Idols

v. 1- “we all have knowledge.”

v. 4- “an idol is nothing in the world,”

v. 4- “There is no God but one.”

Paul tells the Corinthians that even though they might have a correct theology. Knowledge without love can often lead to sinful actions. Paul wants the Corinthians to realize that knowledge isn’t just for oneself but rather we should use our knowledge to serve others in love.

When we have knowledge and use it for just our own benefit is often leads to pride because we are focused only on ourselves. We “puff up” and think of ourselves as superior toward others. But when we take what we know and choose to serve others with love, we are not focusing on just ourselves but now we put the focus on others and we can “build them up”.

Transition statement: So what happens when we encounter another person who doesn’t have the same level of knowledge? What does it look like to love them?

Let’s go back to 1 Cor. 8 and keep reading and I think we’ll find the answer.

Read 1 Cor. 8:7-13.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 8

7 However, not everyone has this knowledge. Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not bring us close to God. We are not worse off if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat. 9 But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols? 11 So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge. 12 Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.

In these final 7 verses of chapter 8 we see that the other thing to consider when asking the question, “It is sinful to do _______”? is to ask, Will this help other believers glorify God?

Will this help other believers glorify God?

1 Cor. 8:7-13.

If you haven’t already, I want you to underline verse 9. In this verse we see that sometimes what we have as a right or, what we know to be true, should lead us to be willing to give that up in order to help other believers glorify God.

Paul states that not every believer has the same amount of knowledge. Paul says that

Some people come from different backgrounds and they don’t understand the deeper things of theology.

and we need to be aware of that because

Christians need to be willing to give up things in order to help others glorify God in their conscience.

Paul talks specifically about the issue of food sacrificed to idols.

Remember earlier we talked about the town of Corinth being pagan and people worshipping physical idols as gods. So when someone who was pagan became a Christian, they don’t have all the understanding right away that someone who has been a Christian for 5 years would have. So when they saw a more mature Christian (who knows that an idol is nothing) eating meat that has been sacrificed to idols, the new Christian (who still might believe that an idol is something) sees that it is ok to eat meat sacrificed to idols and eats it to partake in idol worship.

I know that might seem confusing because we don’t see that often here in Central IL but let me give you another example in our context today.

Modern day example- Halloween

When I was in high school, there was someone in my grade who identified as a witch. For this person halloween was seen as a day to do some witchcraft. In celebrating halloween they would dress up to scare off ghosts. But if that person became a believer and was invited to a halloween party still believing that ghosts were real and they had to scare them off. That new Christian dressed up because they think that it’s up to them to keep themselves safe.

When in reality ghosts aren’t real. We would say that it is demonic activity. For the believer we are safe and secure in Christ and he will protect us. But for this new Christian they think it’s up to them instead of trusting in Christ resulting in sin. The sin of not fully trusting in Christ and not believing that He is good enough. Thinking that you have to do something more than what Christ has already done. We call that the sin of unbelief.

Now if you haven’t already, I want you to underline verse 12.

We see that, Paul wants the Corinthian church to take this seriously. I want you and I to also take this seriously. That if we cause someone to sin, we are also sinning against Christ.

If this is the case, some of you might be thinking. Kent if we take the example of Halloween seriously. Then should we stop having a Hype costume challenge around halloween? If you are thinking this, this is a valid and good question. One that I have had to wrestle with every year Halloween comes up. Here is a couple of things we do at Hype to help believers glorify God in a situation like that.

We make it a themed costume challenge (i.e. dress up as your parents) we do this to try to eliminate someone’s desire to dress up scary to scare off ghosts.

We have a time of teaching that usually correlates with the costume challenge and during this time we teach biblical truths and present the gospel with the hope of point everyone back to Christ.

This I believe this allows us to have the knowledge that we are secure in Christ and use it without causing someone to sin.

In the end, Paul is saying we need to be willing to give things up in order to not cause another believer to sin. But we don’t just stay there. If we are aware that another believer doesn’t have a deeper understanding of biblical truth then that is an opportunity for us to teach them those biblical truths. But the big picture is being aware of other believers and helping them glorify God as much as we can.

So how does this become practical for you as students in today’s context.

Applications

1. Be aware of other Christians around you.

Know who they are and where they are at in their understanding of theology.

2. Be willing to sacrifice some things in order to help other believers glorify God.

Are you willing to humble yourselves to use your knowledge of biblical truths to serve other believers.

Ultimately our lives are meant to glorify God and enjoying Him and we do this by Loving God and Loving others. Being willing to sacrifice for the sake of another believer yet another way we can do that. Let’s pray.