"Is it possible for my temporal activities can have eternal significance?"

Question:

Is it possible for my temporal activities to have eternal significance?

The reason I want to address this question tonight is because when we think of the temporal versus the eternal, we tend to create two opposing entities. For example, if someone desires to go out to eat and someone else decides to go to soul winning, we are prone to say that one of those activities brings greater glory to God than the other.

I propose to you that an individual can go soul winning and bring less glory to God than someone who goes to eat dinner after the service tonight. But how is this possible? How can something so contrary to our thoughts be true?

What we can admit is that there are some activities that are inherently more virtuous than others on the exterior, and their are some activities that appear to be more “eternally-minded” than others on the outside; but this is not always the case.

What I am proposing tonight is that we be people whose lives are lived by an eternal paradigm rather than a temporal paradigm. But what does that look like?

As we look at this passage, we should keep in mind the context of the day. The culture was an idolatrous one, but the Lord had broken into this culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the midst of this people were turning from false gods to the one, true God. Paul is admonishing the Christians their to be considerate of the consciences of the Jews, the Gentiles, and to the church of God.

In whatever activity they engage in, the Corinthian believers are to do so in a manner that glorifies God. What does this mean?

Since I am in Christ, my position with God is not determined by what I eat or drink.

(i) This meant that they were no longer to consider their lives compartmentally. Everything belonged to the Lord, including those things in which they found pleasure.

Illustration:

(ii) This means that they were not thinking that asceticism did not make them more acceptable with God.

(iii) This also meant that asceticism was also NOT out of the question.

How can it be both ways? It can be both ways because when we understand that since Jesus Christ is our Lord, all that we do or don’t do is for the sake of the souls of others and not for our own position with God.

The base line principle from this chapter is really two-fold:

An idol is what someone trusts in to bring them blessing, security, happiness. An idol is something you sacrifice to please. An idol is something you worship as god. , ,

With an idol came practices of withholding from certain foods and certain laws. To do these particular deeds made the worshippers feel as though the gods were appeased. There was a particular impact that these offerings had upon the conscience. Even for those in the Jewish system, the ritual sacrifices made people remember the sins annually.

Hebrews 10:3 KJV 1900

But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

By grace, we learn that the true God has provided a sufficient sacrifice that makes all of our offerings no longer necessary. Unfortunately, because we are human, our consciences still bug us and we feel as though we still need to do or NOT do some of the deeds of our prior worship. But in Christ our evil consciences are sprinkled with his blood ()

Hebrews 10:22 KJV 1900

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Illustration:

I was driving to go to Towne BLVD not too long ago, and while I was driving I, unnecessarily turned onto Union Rd. Why? It was out of habit.

This is what happens to those who, having been raised with ritual, find salvation in Christ. They still have a habitual turning towards thinking that they fulfillment of duty makes the acceptable with God.

II Kings 18:

Transition: So if we have been delivered from idolatry and now Jesus is our Lord, what does it mean to live for God’s glory or to live with eternity in view?

(i) It means that all you do, you do with faith in the sufficiency of the One you worship - Jesus. What makes eating and drinking not glorify God is when it is pursued selfishly because you have not found Jesus to be enough.

(a) Since Jesus is not enough, I will engage in gluttony - trying to find satisfaction in food

(b) Since Jesus is not enough, I will engage in pleasure-seeking - trying to find satisfaction in entertainment.

Illustration:

Other Gods

What other gods could we have besides the Lord? Plenty. For Israel there were the Canaanite Baals, those jolly nature gods whose worship was a rampage of gluttony, drunkenness, and ritual prostitution. For us there are still the great gods Sex, Shekels, and Stomach (an unholy trinity constituting one god: self), and the other enslaving trio, Pleasure, Possessions, and Position, whose worship is described as “The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (). Football, the Firm, and Family are also gods for some. Indeed the list of other gods is endless, for anything that anyone allows to run his life becomes his god and the claimants for this prerogative are legion. In the matter of life’s basic loyalty, temptation is a many-headed monster.

Your Father Loves You by James Packer, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986, page for April 17

Galaxie Software. (2002). 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press.

(ii) It means that you are able to abstain from things without them having control over you (because they are not your Lord).

(i) Since Jesus is enough, you don’t need to eat for your ultimately pleasure

(ii) Since Jesus makes you acceptable with God, you don’t need another god like entertainment.

The key is how you understand grace. If you understand grace to merely be something appended to your life then you have minimized grace. Rather, if you understand that grace is something you’ve participated in, then you understand that your entire life is to be of grace.

A right relationship with Jesus Christ leads to a right relationship with the things of this life.

A right relationship with Jesus Christ means that you have received him as your Lord and Savior.

A right relationship with Jesus Christ means that nothing you eat, drink, or participate in can make you more accepted positionally with God.

A right relationship with Jesus Christ means that there is nothing you could not abstain from if you had to - that would destroy your life.

A right relationship with Jesus Christ means that the things of this life are not ENDS [not ULTIMATE] in themselves. Rather the things in this life are means to an end.

If we have full assurance of faith in Jesus Christ, we can sense the pleasure of the temporal and genuinely praise God.

If we have full assurance of the faith in Jesus Christ, we can enjoy food and genuinely praise God without the food being our lord.

If we have full assurance of faith in Jesus Christ, we can enjoy entertainment without the entertainment being Lord over us.

Lest, I am misunderstood, I think it best to give us some questions to gauge whether we really understand how the temporal can bring God glory:

(1) How does God see you right now? What does he say about you right now, as he looks down upon you? Is it any less than loved and accepted in Christ? If so, why? Caution: your response to this may very well be your idol.

(2) What thing, commodity, pleasure could you absolutely NOT live without if it were taken away from you today? (i.e. retirement, healthcare, job…etc)

(3) What person, if the Lord should choose to take them, could you not live without?

(4) What liberty do you have that you would be unwilling to give up for those who do not feel that same way as you do?

(5) What preference have you made a non-negotiable that the Bible has not made non-negotiable?

(6) What sends you into a fit of uncontrollable rage or anxiety? What state were you emotions in during the supreme court nomination?

If you want to live your temporal life for eternal purposes, it begins by settling in your heart Who Jesus is and that He is enough for your position with God and he is enough for satisfaction in this life.

This understanding changes all that we perceive to be duties to be delights:

- We see giving, not as an exercise to BE someone, but it is an exercise because of who I am

Our temporal activities bring glory to God as they are done in full assurance that they do not make us more acceptable or less acceptable with God. Consequently, this means we are quite considerate of the consciences of others.

This then is how someone who goes soul winning can bring less glory to God than someone going to eat dinner tonight. One can go soul winning, thinking that this soul winning will bring them merit with God while another can believe in his standing in Christ and enjoy all of life, including eating out of this standing.

History of “Rock of Ages”

Rock of Ages

Charles Wesley wrote some of his hymns to promote his brother John’s doctrine of entire sanctification. The second verse of his “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” asks God to “take away our bent to sinning.” This was too much for Calvinist Augustus Toplady. In a magazine of which he was editor, Toplady wrote an article in refutation, detailing a picture of man’s potential for sinning. He arrived at the mathematical conclusion that a man of eighty is guilty of many millions of sins, a debt he can never hope to pay but for which he need not despair because of the sufficiency of Christ. He closed the article with an original poem. “A Living and Dying Prayer for the Holiest believer in the World.” This poem, now one of the most beloved hymns of all time, and know under the title, “Rock of Ages,” was born out of party spirit.

Augustus Montague Toplady, the writer of “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me,” was born in England in 1740 and died there from tuberculosis in 1778.

Toplady was a staunch Calvinist and notorious for his dislike of and feuds with John Wesley. Though he had converted to Methodism, his study persuaded him that the Calvinist perspective, rather than Arminian theology supported by Wesley, offered the best understanding of salvation. In 1775, he moved to Leichester Fields and preached for a French Calvinist Church.

Frederick John Gilman, The Evolution of the English Hymn, Macmillan, 1927, pp. 223-225

Toplady was involved in several literary endeavors. He published Psalms and Hymns for a Public and Private Worship (1776) and served as editor of the Gospel Magazine from 1771-1776.

In the Dictionary of Hymnology, John Julian cites the 1775 article “Life a Journey,” in which Toplady first published the first stanza of “Rock of Ages.” The following paragraph preceded the first stanza of the hymn: “Yes, if you fall, be humbled, but do not despair. Pray afresh to God, who is able to raise you up, and set you on your feet again. Look to the blood of the covenant; and say to the Lord from the depths of your heart . . . ”

The complete hymn appeared a year later in the Gospel Magazine as “A Living and Dying Prayer for the Holiest Believer in the World.” According to hymnologist Albert Bailey, the climax of the article “intended to show that as England could never pay her national debt, so man could never liquidate his sin account.”

Galaxie Software. (2002). 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press.

In this prayer, Toplady uses “Rock of Ages” as an endearing term for God. Christ’s blood from his death as the forgiveness for our sins is the theme in stanza one. Stanza two focuses on the idea that we can never repay him for that sacrifice. Baptism is the theme of stanza three. Stanza four climaxes with an eschatological focus asking for mercy as we face death.

In this prayer, Toplady uses “Rock of Ages” as an endearing term for God. Christ’s blood from his death as the forgiveness for our sins is the theme in stanza one. Stanza two focuses on the idea that we can never repay him for that sacrifice. Baptism is the theme of stanza three. Stanza four climaxes with an eschatological focus asking for mercy as we face death....

Scriptural references are all paraphrases. He cites , for instance, “when my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.” And : “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

...British hymnologist J.R. Watson suggests that perhaps the hymn owes the most to : “for they drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”

British hymnologist J.R. Watson suggests that perhaps the hymn owes the most to : “for they drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”

"Is it possible for my temporal activities can have eternal significance?"

(1) It means that we are partakers of things in life by grace (v. 30)

(2) It means that there was no part of their life that was not to be under the rule of the Lord (v. 31).

(1) By grace God has delivered us from idolatry

(2) So don’t live idolatrously - live for God’s glory (for the souls of others)