Liberty

Introduction

Some of you may be familiar with the 1993 classic film, Jurassic Park. I don’t know if we’re allowed to call movies from the 90s classics yet, but I’m going to. I feel like I probably don’t need to explain the plot to you, in the same way that I don’t need to say “spoiler warning” about movies that are over 10 years old. Like, if you haven’t watched it by now that’s on you.

But, the plot for Jurassic Park is that this rich billionaire decides to create an island theme park inhabited by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. Nothing good ever comes from bored billionaires. It’s hard to think of any potential downside that could come from this idea, but in a shocking twist, things go very poorly. The dinosaurs get out, people get eaten, a Tyrannosaurus destroys a jeep, it’s just not great. Apparently these fictional characters didn’t learn their lesson, as they made two more Jurassic Park movies and that’s not even including the remakes from the past few years.

The point here is that I really wanted to talk about Jurassic Park.

However, back in the original 1993 Jurassic Park movie, there is at least one character that is a bit skeptical about the whole thing. That character’s name is Dr. Ian Malcom, played by Jeff Goldblum. When first given a presentation on the theme park, Dr. Malcolm has some significant concerns about what the scientists are doing. He’s a smart guy. In expressing these concerns he gives what has become one of the most famous quotes of the whole movie, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

My mind returns to this quote fairly often nowadays, as we see examples of people not asking whether they should do something, but whether or not they can.

Of course, we are also pushing boundaries with things that are perhaps a little more serious , like AI technology for instance. In many places it seems like we are throwing out what we should do in favor of what we can do.

Of course, you have this same mindset at times. Last week we talked about idolatry, specifically how we can take good things and elevate them to a place where they begin to pull our affections away from God. In idolatry, most of the time our mindset is - “how much can I obsess over something in my life before it becomes an idol?” In other words, “how close to the line can I get?” The desire to get as close to idolatry, sin, whatever, and still not “cross the line” indicates that in your heart you’ve already crossed the line.

You see, if this is what’s in your heart, you aren’t asking what you should do, but what you can do.

Idolatry primarily relates this to ourselves and how we experience and engage with different things in our lives. But this principle also extends outside of ourselves to others and how we interact and engage with them, whether it be other Christians or people that don’t know Jesus.

In the New Testament, Paul is very clear about a concept called “Christian liberty.” On a basic level, Christian liberty simply means that Christians are freed to be able to engage in things that are not expressly forbidden in Scripture. Of course, there are plenty of things that are expressly forbidden, but Christian liberty speaks directly to the idea that there is plenty of room for Christians to charitably disagree with each other on minor issues where there is not clear biblical teaching.

However, there are two ways to think about Christian liberty. One is that this liberty means that we are free to be able to serve God and others, and the second is that we are free to serve ourselves.

Paul spells this out in Galatians 5:

Galatians 5:13-14 “For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself.”

A Christian who is focused on serving themselves will only think about what they want to do, and never consider how it will impact other people. They will say whatever they want, post online whatever they want, listen to whatever they want, watch whatever they want, wear whatever they want, even eat or drink whatever they want. After all - they’re free! They’re allowed to do these things!

But, this kind of Christian is only focused on what they can do, not what they should do.

Paul is continuing to address these “strong” Christians in Corinth who believed that in Christ they were free to do whatever they wanted to do, and did not appear to have any patience for other Christians who might be offended by some of their actions. They also did not have a mindset that considered how their behavior might impact those who did not know Jesus. In this last part of 1 Corinthians 10, Paul is going to emphasize to them a very important principle that still rings true for us today:

Preoccupation with personal liberty hinders your gospel witness.

Let’s read together starting in verse 23:

1 Corinthians 10:23–11:1 CSB

“Everything is permissible,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up. No one is to seek his own good, but the good of the other person. Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, without raising questions for the sake of conscience, since the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. If any of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions for the sake of conscience. But if someone says to you, “This is food from a sacrifice,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for the sake of conscience. I do not mean your own conscience, but the other person’s. For why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience? If I partake with thanksgiving, why am I criticized because of something for which I give thanks? So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or Greeks or the church of God, just as I also try to please everyone in everything, not seeking my own benefit, but the benefit of many, so that they may be saved. Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ.

Point A: All our actions should glorify God by seeking the benefit of others rather than ourselves.

Point B: Within the framework of that principle, we are free to eat whatever we like with thankfulness.

By pressing this principle [Paul] hopes to change the terms of the discourse at Corinth, to provide a new framework for moral judgment.

Richard B. Hays

Having emphasized that idolatry is esteeming anything over your own personal relationship with God, Paul pushes this idea even farther and says putting anything above our desire for other people to know Christ is also wrong.

He is trying to give the Corinthians a new framework to think about their decisions and how they interact with each other. Instead of just thinking about what they can do, he wants them to think about what they should do.

He starts by challenging their guiding principle for life...

I. (23-24)

“Everything is permissible”

This is Paul quoting the Corinthians, one of their favorite sayings and how they excused doing basically whatever they wanted.

Paul has already quoted this same saying back in 1 Corinthians 6:12 ““Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything.”

Main focus now on relationship with others instead of one’s own spiritual well-being

Paul qualifies their statement again, not disagreeing with it outright, but giving it some much-needed context

He accepts the premise of their argument, that everything is permissible, but says that even so not all things are beneficial to others, and not everything builds other people up.

Paul is contrasting two different “rules for life” guiding principles that shape decision-making and what we do/don’t do.

The Corinthians had accepted “everything is permissible” as a guiding rule for life.

Paul accepts that yes, they have freedom in Christ and aren’t bound by legalistic rules and regulations, but challenges that freedom as a guiding principle for life

A better principle for life is that a Christian should not seek his own good but instead the good of others.

The Corinthians considered themselves spiritually mature because they had advanced to the point where they were “strong” enough to handle things like eating meat sacrificed to idols, even attending pagan feasts, etc.

They thought that spiritual maturity meant having the attitude that “everything is permissible,” when Paul is saying no, spiritual maturity is looking out for the good of other people.

Flawed view of maturity:

Even though Paul is talking about spiritual maturity here, we can think of it in terms of physical maturity. When you’re young, especially a teenager, you can at times have this real desire and yearning for the freedom that comes with adulthood, to be out of your parents’ house. There’s nothing wrong with that inherently, but often a teenager has a really flawed view of what maturity and adulthood is. I remember the first time I was able to move out on my own and I was so excited to have my own place, but then had to sheepishly come back to my parents and say “have you heard of something called a security deposit?” A flawed view of maturity causes you to misinterpret what maturity even is.

The Corinthians had actually not matured past the idea that they could do whatever they wanted to thinking more about others than themselves.

Paul is continuing to flesh out more explicitly what he said in 1 Corinthians 8:1 “Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

In other words, the knowledge that the Corinthians had (that all things were permissible) was causing them to be self-absorbed and not think about others. Love for other people injects a sense of humility and open-handedness into a Christian’s life as they grow in maturity.

What is your guiding principle for life? Do you first think about what might build others up, or are you too focused on what you are technically “allowed” to do? Don’t answer too quickly.

Remember:

Maturity is focusing on what you should do, not what you can do.

Maturity is also not going out of your way to be offended. We aren’t supposed to judge each other in these non-essential issues.

Romans 14:3 “One who eats must not look down on one who does not eat, and one who does not eat must not judge one who does, because God has accepted him.”

Christians are supposed to mature past the point of being offended by everything. A mark of maturity is not that you find more things to get offended by.

So although we might be able to identify a Christian as growing in maturity based in their constant offense, that is not an opportunity for us to rub our Christian liberty in their face, but instead think of this as an opportunity to use our freedom for the good of others - freedom to do certain things and also freedom to not do certain things when the situation requires it!

For the Corinthians it was ‘me first,’ but for Paul it was ‘others first.’

Paul Barnett

Making permissibility rather than helpfulness one’s guide for Christian behavior makes it possible to disconnect Christian doctrine from Christian living…Paul’s issue in Corinth is that some claim a truth about their freedom while disregarding their responsibility to Christ’s community.

Preben Vang

The “others” Paul has in mind are understood by the contrast with oneself. It is not any other person in particular, but precisely anyone who would be overlooked and suffer the consequences of our selfish preoccupation with our own rights and benefits.

Ciampa Rosner

Paul is going to give a couple of examples to show how this kind of principle works practically, so he uses two common and innocent ways people might come across idol food, which is the topic he is specifically dealing with.

II. (25 - 30)

1. Meat sold at the meat market

Sacrificial meat was probably very common and hard to avoid. Especially the best cuts of meat would often come from idol worship. So going through the meat market much of the meat had probably been involved in idol worship.

Paul is clear that they have the freedom to eat the meat (ref. back to 8:4, 10:19 - there is no inherent power in the meat itself), but to not ask questions about it, grilling (so to speak) the shop owners about where it came from - that would be overthinking and legalistic.

If they didn’t know where the meat came from there would be no issue with their conscience

“Conscience” does not refer to “our conscience” as in our own subjective sense of right and wrong, but rather the ‘commonly held values’ of the community - theological understanding. Self-awareness, moral confidence, formed moral character.

If they asked where the meat came from and the vendor told them it had been sacrificed to idols, buying it would then look like they had some kind of religious intention, they thought the meat was sacred or some nonsense. So it was better to just not ask.

Why? Because all the food belongs to the Lord.

Paul quotes from Psalm 24

Psalm 24:1 (CSB)

The earth and everything in it,

the world and its inhabitants,

belong to the Lord;

Because the Lord has authority the Corinthian Christians didn’t have to walk around on eggshells, overthinking everything and worrying. They could have freedom knowing their Father had authority over everything and that could be the foundational reality for their lives.

2. Dinner at an unbeliever’s home

Going to eat with an unbeliever is something that Christians still had to work through just like Jesus did - it may have still been something that was judged by some Christians, especially Jewish Christians who were sensitive to the Jewish moral laws

Clarification - this is not the kind of pagan feast at the temple we talked about last week

Paul says no, it’s okay, you can go and eat whatever is there.

Same principle applies as the meat market - don’t ask questions, just eat and enjoy.

There is one important caveat in v. 28

Paul says that if the believer is informed that they are being served meat that was sacrificed to idol, they are to abstain

There were cultural norms related to meals at others houses at that time - potential for god worship, celebration of idols, etc.

“This is food from a sacrifice” would not probably be said without some underlying motive

There is a good chance that it would indicate that the unbeliever views eating that meat as an act of worship to a pagan god, even though the Christian would not have that perspective

It’s also possible that the host would say this as something to be proud of, even excited about the perceived “sacredness” of the meat

In that case, the Christian abstaining helps clarify any confusion from the unbeliever about the exclusivity of Christ - it is clear that the Christian wants nothing to do with anything that would approach idol worship

Confusion in 29-30

Almost sounds like Paul is contradicting himself - at least he is switching his tone pretty dramatically

There are couple of interpretations of this, but I am going to go with what most commentators seem to agree on, and an explanation that makes sense to me in the context of the passage.

Paul is not taking a break to rip into people that would judge him for his actions - instead he is asking a couple of rhetorical questions to further emphasize the point he is making

Paul is asking these questions to say “what is the point in exercising my freed by giving thanks and eating something if it is going to cause someone else to make a judgment about me? It makes no sense that I should turn an opportunity to give thanks to God for food into a mess that might confusion and criticism. I should just abstain.”

In other words - “Why would I put myself in that position?”

Paul’s aim is not to highlight the error of those judging and blaming but to underscore the necessity of the Christian testimony. The meaning of his questions would then be this: “If I dine with thanksgiving, why should I make that an opportunity where people could condemn my faith [10:30] rather than finding it for themselves [10:33]?”

Preben Vang

In doing so, abstaining could even be a witness to the gospel if a Corinthian Christian was willing to contrast their behavior with the behavior of the unbeliever.

All of this could be summarized like this:

Hold your rights with open hands.

This is a little hard to hear in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We have been conditioned from a very young age to hold fast to our freedoms and liberty over almost anything.

Of course we value the freedom we have in this country, the freedom that allows us to meet here today. But if we transplant the way we think about American liberty directly onto how we think about Christian liberty, we’re going to be in trouble. Because Christian liberty is not first and foremost about “my” rights and freedom, but what is best for someone else.

Christians should be ready and willing to restrict their Christian liberty so as not to lead people astray.

Leading people astray may look like restricting our freedom so as not to put up barriers to people coming to know Jesus, but it may also look like not participating in some activities so as not to give implicit approval to their actions.

We do not want to confirm idolatry in other people’s lives and be stumbling blocks to other people coming to know Christ. If it means giving up our “freedom” to do so, so be it.

Paul gives the Corinthians a new mantra...

III. (31 - 11:1)

“All things to the glory of God” instead of “all things are permissible”

“the glory of God” is not some abstract principle, it fits within Paul’s overall argument. How is God glorified?

Specifically in this instance: God is glorified when his people serve each other and live together in unity.

Psalm 133:1 “How delightfully good when brothers live together in harmony!”

So “doing all things to the glory of God” is not necessarily an individual choice that each one of us gets to make. It is not sufficient for us to say, “well, I think this glorifies God so everyone else can just get over it.” No! In context, Paul is clearly saying that whatever you eat, drink or whatever else you might do, God’s glory must be your goal - specifically, that the people of God would be unified and serve each other.

Paul gives us three summary points to give us practical instruction in how this looks:

Don’t offend anyone

Try to please everyone

Don’t seek your own benefit

One out of three of those might sound pretty good to you. But when you hear “don’t offend anyone” and “try to please everyone,” that might fly in the face of some of your preconceptions of how Christians should live.

But we can’t miss Paul’s very important qualifier of these three summaries:

v. 33 “That they might be saved.”

Paul is not saying to do these things just to be “nice,” or to get along with a lot of people and be popular with the world. He is pleading that the Corinthians would seek the unity of the church by laying down their rights for each other, and seek to grow the church by not putting barriers between people and the gospel. So that means that all of what Paul is saying is subject to the truth of the gospel, it cannot be watered down to be made more palatable.

So let’s look at these three summaries with that in mind:

Don’t offend anyone

Jews, Greeks, or the church of God (Christians)

We live in a culture that goes out of its way to be offensive. Christians can fall into the trap of trying to be overly offensive just to match what everyone else is doing.

Paul is very clear - go out of your way not to offend anyone in an unnecessary way. Doing and saying things that drive people away from the gospel is wrong.

The gospel is offensive, Paul has already made that clear in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23 “For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.”

The gospel message is offensive enough as it is, we don’t have to make it more offensive by our behavior.

Try to please everyone

Sounds kind of like people-pleasing.

Paul has already explained how he does this multiple times so far in 1 Corinthians.

This is not being a pushover - this is intentional action trying not to create unnecessary tension that might keep someone from coming to know Jesus.

Think about it like this: would some of your friends, coworkers, fellow students be surprised to learn you are a Christian? If you were the only representation of Christianity that they had, would that be a good thing? Would it draw them to Christ or are you abrasive, divisive, judgmental, even cruel?

Paul here is simply speaking to the reality that he and every other Christian is a witness to Christ whether we like it or not. So our behavior needs to be a witness to Christ, and even our failures need to be an opportunity to repent and reflect our own dependence on Christ.

Don’t seek your own benefit

This is the key principle that Paul is going to emphasize.

What benefits the most people - that they may come to know Jesus?

This is a missional mindset - not a self-focused mindset.

A litmus test in a way. As you think about your daily life you can ask yourself “am I living in a way that primarily benefits me or benefits others coming to know Jesus?”

You no longer have the freedom and ability to only think in a way that benefits yourself - you give that up when you become a Christian. Everything you are is now subject to who your King has declared you to be and what he has commissioned you to do.

This is why we wrap the famous verse in 11:1 into this section. Of course, this is a great verse for discipleship and it is often used that way. But, in context, Paul is clearly saying to the Corinthians that he lives this way because he is imitating Christ.

This is the heart of Christ! Sacrificing, self-giving, not holding onto his own rights, comforts and freedom.

Listen to the common language in...

Luke 19:10 CSB

For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

In 1 Corinthians Paul is saying that he is seeking the benefit of many: that they may be saved. Christ came to seek and save the lost.

This is most explicitly spelled out in...

Philippians 2:3–11 CSB

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This is the type of imitation that Paul is specifically talking about here in 11:1. Imitating Christ as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, the one who did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself and was obedient even to the point of death.

Jesus gave everything for us. So we should give everything for others to know him.

If I was to take a poll among the Christians in the room, I think that most of you would probably say that you are willing to die for your faith. Maybe that’s naive of me, but I do think that’s the case. If someone was explicitly threatening you with death unless you denied Christ your Savior, you would give your life instead of denying him. At least cognitively I think many of you would say that.

But here’s the thing: most of you, pretty much all of you, are not going to be called to give your physical life for Christ. You aren’t ever going to be put in that situation, probably. I will probably never be in that situation. So I wonder if it is “easier” for us to insist that “oh yes, I would die for Jesus,” since it is such a far-off, implausible hypothetical.

But here’s a tough but convicting statement for you to consider:

You might be willing to die for Jesus, but are you willing to live for him?

You probably are not going to be called to give the ultimate sacrifice for Christ, but you are going to be called to sacrifice “smaller” things each day. You may insist that you would be faithful to Christ even if it costs you your life, but you aren’t faithful to imitate him right now. You might say that you would be obedient to the point of death, but you aren’t willing to obey him when he commands us to put others ahead of yourself.

Application

Preoccupation with personal liberty hinders your gospel witness.

I don’t say this to heap shame on you but to challenge you with the reality that it is possible for you to start living for Christ right here, right now. You can imitate Christ, just as Paul did, giving of yourself to others and not clinging to your rights for dear life.

So how do you do that? How do you even get started?

It would actually be a lot easier if we had meat sacrificed to idols these days. If we did we could just make some adjustments and everything might be okay. But, as usual, the problem isn’t actually the meat, the meals, or the market. It’s our hearts. Our flesh is persistently self-absorbed and resists any attempt to focus on putting others first.

First step: idolatry inventory from last week: dontgo.be/idolatry. Many times are idols are things that may be damaging other people but we are just so deep into idolatry that we don’t realize it.

Second: think about others. Ask yourself the serious question, “when was the last time that I thought about how my actions impact other people?” There is a tension here: as Christians we don’t walk around on eggshells, trying so hard to be bland so as not to potentially offend anyone. But we also don’t flaunt our freedom.

Third: rather than give you a more exhaustive list of things to do, I’d like you to think about who you should become. And, as Christians, we know that transformational power only comes about as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Without his work, we will be selfish people clinging to our own rights and ignoring the call of Christ on our lives. So I’d like to challenge you to allow the Holy Spirit to work this fundamental truth into your mind and heart:

Everything you are called to do Christ has already done for you.

Think back to Philippians 2, let’s put that back up on the screen. Think about all that Christ has done for you. Christ, being fully God, became man to redeem us. He entered into our broken world, consistently giving of himself in every way, thinking not of himself but of us. Even when it meant that he would go to his death for me and for you, he did it, and you were on his mind as he hung there on the cross. Think about this: the most free being that could possibly exist chose to take on the form of a servant to seek and save the lost. And his heart for you was such that he would would face death itself (and defeat it, by the way) that you might be saved.

I’m so glad that Jesus did not cling to his rights, his freedoms, but gave himself for you and for me.

Conclusion

The gospel is such good news. It undergirds everything that we are called to do as followers of Christ. We love because he first loved us.

As we close I’m going to invite the band to come up. I want to lay before you a vision. A vision of what it might look like for us to live in a missional and sacrificial way in our community for the sake of people coming to know Jesus. Not walking on eggshells or compromising the truth of the gospel, but times giving up or surrendering things that we really want for the sake of the gospel.

What would it look like for us to mature past the point of being preoccupied with what we can do, to hold our rights with open hands, willing to live and yes, even die for Jesus? What if we began to view our own freedom in Christ as an opportunity to share the gospel and see people respond, not as an opportunity to do whatever we want, trampling on other people? What if we tried to clear away all the cobwebs to focus solely on the gospel in all of its glory, implications, and yes, offense?

Who might come to know Jesus? Could we see revival?

I think so.

What if we gave of ourselves in joyful response to how Christ has given himself to us?

I think then we would find true Christian liberty: serving Christ by serving others for the sake of the gospel.