There we go. Okay, I think we have all the pieces in place now. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this time together this morning. We thank you for the gift of your word, which speaks to us. Lord, your power is great and mighty, and I pray that your spirit would move in our midst this morning, helping us to follow you and live lives that are holy and pleasing for you. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, our sermon this morning is titled very simply, Flee From Idolatry. Those are Paul's opening words in our passage today, and they constitute the main point of our sermon, flee from idolatry. If we want to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then we must learn to flee idolatry. If we want to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, then we must flee from idolatry. If we want to be, as Paul tells the Philippians, if we want to be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, then we must flee from idolatry. If we want to hear God speak to us, then we must flee from idolatry. If we want God to answer our prayers and move in our lives, we must flee from idolatry. Paul says, look, Christianity and idolatry, these two should never be mixed together. It's a silly example, but it's a little bit like milk and orange juice, right? These things should never be mixed together. I mean, certainly you can do it. and no doubt many of you have, but it's just gross. I mean, these two should never be put together. And Paul says, look, in your lives that you probably were all a mixture of Orthodox Christian faith and all kinds of idolatry. But these two should never be mixed together. They should create a sour, bitter taste in our mouth. And we should be doing everything we can to root out the one so that we can pursue God faithfully and consistently. Now the problem is that because we don't live in a time and place where we have temples to other gods on every street corner, we have a hard time figuring out what idolatry even is. So unfortunately, and I've probably even done this myself, often in churches, pastors, Christian leaders, youth group leaders, we can sometimes give the impression that everything is an idol. Everything is an idol. Spend a little bit too much time at the gym, idolatry. Did you watch a whole season of your favorite show on TV? Idolatry. Know too many stats and details about your favorite sports team? Idolatry. Now, I hope you see I'm exaggerating here, and of course, certainly, watching too much television, spending too much time at the gym, professional sports, all these things can become idols in our lives. They can become things that completely sideline God and relegate our Christian faith to something that we sort of have on the side or do as and when we have time and there's nothing else going on in our lives. But I think that for most of us, the issue of idolatry is far more subtle and complex than merely labeling certain things in our lives or culture as automatically being idols. So today, rather than trying to enumerate and condemn all these different examples of idolatry, I want to focus instead on why Paul rejects idolatry, why he says we should flee from it. And I think as we dig into those reasons, we'll end up seeing a lot more close connections with our own lives. So let's dive into the text here. Paul says in verse 14, therefore my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. It turns out that our passage today is not really the beginning of something new for Paul, but really the conclusion of an argument that traces all the way back to chapter 8, verse 1, and that he's been hammering on hard throughout chapter 10. Therefore, Paul says, which forces us to look back of what he's already said and what Michael and Mark preached on the last few weeks. And I'm paraphrasing here, but basically Paul said, look, in light of everything I have just said, in light of the fact that even the people of Israel, whom God himself brought out of Egypt, the ones whom God sustained supernaturally in the desert, the ones who witnessed the actual Passover event itself, the ones who saw God part the Red Sea, If even they fell into idolatry and sexual immorality, presuming on God and grumbling and complaining against the Creator, if even they did that, then what are you thinking when you would presume to somehow be immune to all of that? What makes you think that you're so unlikely to fall into the same patterns of sin and rebellion and idolatry in your lives? The only sensible conclusion they can and should draw from all the argument that's gone before is what Paul says in verse 14, therefore flee idolatry. But why? Why should they flee from idolatry? Paul continues, I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? the bread that we break, is it not participation in the body of Christ? And because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Now Paul makes a really interesting shift here because he grounds this whole conversation about idolatry in a discussion about the Lord's Supper, a communion. So why should we flee idolatry? Well, for starters, Paul says it's because something happens in communion that ties us together with Christ in a unique way. Communion, you see, is more than something that we just remember happening a long time ago. It's a time of fellowship and deep connection, primarily with God through Jesus, but secondarily with other believers as well. Thus having shared such rich fellowship with God and their fellow Christians, how could they then turn away and seek out similar fellowship and relationship with pagan gods? But Paul pushes the image a little further because in some way, and he doesn't go into all the details of how, but in some way this cup of blessing is actually, and in my, the ESV translation here says a participation in the blood of Christ. Don't want to get all fancy on you here, but that word participation in is a Greek word, koinonia, which you may have heard before, koinonia. It means, it's translated here, participation in, or we often translate it, fellowship. Now, unfortunately, that word in English has become so overused. It's just kind of bland and flat. I mean, it just doesn't excite very much. Fellowship for us perhaps conjures to mind images of an hour before or after church when kids are running around crazy and the parents are drinking old burnt coffee and stale cookies or something. Or in our case, we enjoy this amazing meal every week and that's wonderful. I love that we do that. But although churches often designate like a fellowship hour, that word koinonia is not about a specific period of time. It's about connection. It's about deep, lasting, significant, spiritual connection. Paul says here that when we drink the wine, we have koinonia with Jesus. And when we break the bread, we have koinonia with Jesus. This is a very real, profound, spiritual connection taking place with Jesus and with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Which is why, of course, throughout the history of the church, Christians have always approached communion with a sense of awe and wonder. In fact, as we'll see in the next chapter where Paul goes into this in much more detail, if we approach communion carelessly, thoughtlessly, casually, it can actually have very serious and dangerous consequences in our lives. For now, though, Paul uses this image of communion to emphasize the intimate relationship that the people have with Jesus. So why should they flee idolatry? First and foremost, because they already have this rich koinonia with Jesus. It's a special and a unique bond, so they should be wary of participating in anything that would work against it. But Paul then goes on to draw a parallel with the Old Testament sacrifices in the temple. So he says, consider the people of Israel, in verse 18. Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? There's that word koinonia again, participants, fellowshipping together, spiritually connecting with God in the sacrifices taking place in the temple. Therefore, Paul concludes, given such rich connection with God, what are you doing seeking out koinonia with pagans? This unique and special bond that we have with God and with each other, he uses that word koinonia. We have union with Christ and we are all one body in Christ through that moment. This is why I can ultimately, I can be friends with anyone I want to. But biblically, I can only have fellowship with other believers in Christ. I can have friendship with anyone. I mean, we can hang out, spend time, talk together, but fellowship in the Christian sense of that word, that koinonia, that participation, that spiritual connection, it can only happen with brothers and sisters in Christ. It's a unique and special time. Now, Paul doesn't explain how this works. We'd love to know the mechanics. He simply affirms it as a fact. Now for me, I think the closest analogy I can wrap my head around is marriage. So when a man and a woman come together in marriage, the Bible talks about them becoming one flesh. Now, I can't explain the metaphysical processes that are happening to make that the case. I can't lay out all the steps and the way that happens, but I can affirm that my 18 years of experience backs up what the Bible says. Somehow, and I don't really understand how, God took two very different people, Kari and I, really different, and through the institution of marriage, somehow he has made us one. I mean, dating didn't do that, holding hands didn't do that, getting a marriage license from down the street over there, that didn't do it. but making a covenant before God that something happened. God used that and brought us together and made us one. And in a similar way, something happens in communion that draws us into a special koinonia or connectedness with Jesus, which is why it is such a special and sacred moment in our church service. Now, though, I mean, Denominations disagree wildly about exactly what happens, but I can't think of a Christian church that doesn't celebrate communion in some way. It's a vital part of what it means to be a Christian. And we're gonna talk a lot more about this when we move on to chapter 11, but Paul's emphasis here is that when we break bread and drink wine as part of communion, we don't merely look back at what Jesus did, although that's part of it, Nor do we simply reenact the moment when Jesus instituted the new covenant with us, although obviously that is involved as well. But in some way we actually enter into communion with Jesus himself. It's a covenantal relationship, and one which we should value and protect as such. Okay, so Paul pauses now as we move into verse 19, and he wants to make a brief note of clarification. He's already made it clear throughout the last couple of chapters that idols themselves are nothing. They're simply objects. But based on what he's just said, it would be reasonable to start thinking, well, has he changed his mind? I mean, do his comments maybe imply that idols after all are something, that they do have power, that we should be aware of? I mean, why else would he be so upset about them? Well, no, Paul says. He says, the food that the pagans offer in their temples remains completely unchanged by the sacrifices and the prayers and the incantations and all the other hoopla they've got going on there. Bread saves bread. Fruit saves fruit. Meat saves meat. Whatever else they're doing, it's just food. Moreover, the idols and the statues themselves, they don't possess any power. They are indeed, Paul says, meaningless, useless, empty. However, that does not mean that they are harmless. You see, Some of the Christians in Corinth, the ones who call themselves the strong ones, had allowed their knowledge and their supposed spiritual maturity to puff themselves up so much that they thought themselves to be completely above the influence of all this idolatry and paganism around them. They looked down on it all with a kind of intellectual snootiness. recognizing the false nature of the polytheistic paganism all around them, but failing to recognize the very real underlying spiritual dangers associated with all this idolatry. Now, they were correct to dismiss pagan worship as being empty and meaningless and void, but they were standing on very dangerous and unstable ground in saying that they could therefore attend and even participate in pagan celebrations as a result. So Paul says to them, look, you're right. An idol itself, it's nothing. But what you fail to see is that behind these statues, behind these idols, behind these rituals, stand very real, very active demonic forces that are at work to draw us away from Christ. Again, this is such a foreign world for us to consider. We're just not used to thinking this way. I mean, talking about demons sounds, just sounds weird if we're honest. In our desire to be orthodox and biblical, we rightly want to resist the emotional excesses of sort of more charismatic churches But belief in demons is, it turns out, actually very orthodox, very biblical, and a necessary and important part of calling ourselves Christians. So if you don't think demonic forces are real and present, even here now in our shiny high-tech world, you're actually denying the very clear teaching of the Bible. and deluding yourself as to the very real dangers demonic forces pose for us still today. I mean, if Jesus recognized demons and demonic influence as real and present and dangerous, then I think we probably should, too. Now, where we'll disagree, perhaps, is the way in which demonic forces are still operating in this world. I mean, I've met, you know, Sweet old ladies who are like, well, everything bad is like, well, Satan made me do that. The devil made me do that. We were at someone's house once, and I still don't understand what she's talking about, but she was determined to just sweep, sweep, sweep Satan right out of this house. Those are her actual words. I'm like, I don't know what you're doing, but OK. And certainly, some people see demons everywhere. Everything's a demon. And some people talk so much about it, it's hard not to tune out. I'm concerned, in fact I'm increasingly convinced that the more significant and pressing problem for us today is not an overdeveloped fear of demonic influences, but a large scale ambivalence or even apathy towards demonic and very real spiritual forces in this world. Most Christians that I talk to are just don't seem to care that much about it. We don't talk about it. And to be totally transparent, I include myself in that group, in that bucket. I mean, I come from an intellectual background. I love to read and to study and to enunciate my words and sound very important and proper. And I was convicted in studying for the sermon this week that I too have largely been living in denial of the very real daily presence of demonic forces in this world. I mean, I would affirm it on paper, of course, I would never deny it. I mean, yes, yes, statement of faith, of course, demons are real, yes, Satan is real, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But day to day, functionally speaking, I often find myself living my life as if demons just don't exist. And if I'm honest, I've often completely let my guard down. And I need to be far more vigilant going forward. That's what Paul says here. We need to be far more vigilant about the very real presence of demons in the world around us. Now as we move to verse 21, Paul now brings all these pieces of his argument together. So some portion of the Corinthian church seems to have decided that it was okay to participate in the events and gatherings taking place at pagan temples. Now whether these were actual formal official worship services, or they were just social gatherings, or meals, or parties, or whatever it was, they involved invoking or calling upon foreign gods, idols, and they were taking place in the temples. And the point is that the Corinthians who were doing this were participating then in koinonia, in fellowship with pagans. And they excused this behavior on the basis of two reasons. First, they emphasized their impressive knowledge of the scriptures to argue that since there is only one God, then all these other gods must be false. And secondly, they argued that in Christ, they were set free from the law and so therefore, I'm free in Christ, therefore everything is permissible for me. But can you see how easy it is to take two true statements and end up with a false conclusion? Because they concluded from that, well, after all, then we can enjoy fellowship in pagan temples because they're not real gods and I'm free in Christ. And Paul's like, that's an invalid argument. It doesn't make any sense. So Paul has to untangle all of this before declaring here in verse 21, he says, look, the crucial piece of evidence that you're overlooking in all of this, the crucial piece of evidence you're completely failing to recognize is that behind the false veneer of idolatry are very real demonic forces. And you can't have koinonia with both God and demons. You see, for Paul, this fellowship, this participation in the body and blood of Christ has this covenantal dimension to it. As I said earlier, when we break bread and drink the wine, we're participating in the death and resurrection of Christ who sacrificed himself, why? In order to institute a new covenant between God and his people. Now a covenant is not something that we just move into and out of depending on our mood or the time of day or whatever other things are going on in our lives. It's something permanent, solid, irrevocable. So once again, the closest analogy for me is the marriage relationship. When Kari and I got married, we made a covenant to each other and to God. We don't move in and out of marriage as it suits us. We don't sort of celebrate our marriage one day a year on our anniversary and then spend the rest of the year doing whatever we want to do. I mean, think about how ridiculous it would sound if I claimed and professed undying love and commitment to Kari and total faithfulness, and at the same time stood up here and tried to argue for my freedom to have relationships with as many other women as I wanted to. You'd be like, well, that doesn't make sense. That's illogical. You can't mix those two together. And our relationship with God, while so much richer, deeper, and more significant, is nevertheless similar in many respects. Wrapped up in calling myself a Christian is an unwavering commitment to be faithful to Jesus and to Jesus alone. Now, I might be a lazy Christian or kind of like an apathetic Christian. I know for sure I'm an imperfect Christian, but to have any kind of association with other gods is the equivalent of committing spiritual adultery and puts the entire covenant at risk. Now, if that sounds extreme, just read the book of Hosea, right? Or really go through any of the prophets in the Old Testament. God describes his relationship with the people of Israel using exactly these images of marriage and adultery. You see, in going after other gods, the people of Israel were not just misguided or uninformed or foolish, but unfaithful and adulterous. The most wicked sin against God. Now, some of the strongest language of the Old Testament is directed at the people of Israel for their repeated ongoing failures to root out idolatry, to get rid of the foreign gods in their midst. So returning to the situation here in Corinth, Paul says that koinonia with idols and idol worshipers is completely incompatible with koinonia with Jesus. They cannot, I suppose they could coexist, but he says these things should never be mixed together. Fellowship with pagans cannot be tolerated in the church because it involves a complete rejection of the covenant God has established with his people through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Now, just to be clear, as Paul has already noted in this letter, he is not saying that Christians should, the Corinthians, or really any Christians, should remove themselves from the world and sort of sequester themselves in some special enclave somewhere. While I understand the good intentions of monks and ascetics trying to avoid the influence of this world, that's not what Paul's talking about here. In fact, as he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, if the goal was to stay away from all evil, we'd have to remove ourselves completely from the world. You can't do that, it's ridiculous. It's not possible. please keep eating lunch with your co-worker who's an atheist, or invite your Muslim neighbor over for dinner, or have coffee and a donut with your aunt and uncle who are agnostic or don't really know what they believe. That kind of conversation and friendship and connection, that's not what Paul is condemning here. It's not what he's condemning. I mean, how could the gospel ever grow and spread if we never had friendship or connection with other people who are not Christians, right? I mean, that's not the Great Commission at all. I'm not saying that any kind of connection or friendship with non-Christians is bad. What Paul condemns here is very specific. He says we cannot have that kind of close-knit fellowship, that koinonia that is reserved for believers with Christ We cannot have that kind of a close-knit relationship with non-believers in settings that open us up to influence from demonic forces. That's his concern. The food's not the issue. The people aren't the problem. The socializing isn't the problem. The context is. And the context is what was leading people into idolatry and into relationship and influence from demonic forces. Now, we have a hard time grasping this here in America. I mean, how does this apply here? I'm not gonna go down the street to a temple. But think about when we travel overseas. I mean, talk with a missionary, any missionary serving overseas, and they'll talk about the very real dangers that they face. So, you know, tourists may be tempted to wander around a Buddhist or a Hindu temple and, you know, spin a prayer wheel and burn some incense, whatever, and excuse it as, well, this is just a cultural experience. I mean, it doesn't mean anything. I know it's not. It's all made up, but it's a nice, it's a pretty thing. We're all taking photos, it's great. But talk with Christians living and ministering in those contexts, and they'll tell you something very different. And they'll warn you against letting yourself be influenced by the very real, dark, demonic forces still operating in temples where worship is actively taking place. This is a problem. Is Buddha anything? No, I mean, it's just a statue. It's a lump of rock. I mean, does spinning a prayer wheel suddenly make you a Buddhist? No, it's just a piece of wood. But behind these things lie the very real spiritual forces. And when we carelessly start participating in these activities, we're opening ourselves up increasingly more and more to influence from those things. I'm not exactly, this is just applying what Paul says right here. And there are other examples. I mean, I'm so thankful for my parents who basically strictly forbade us from ever going near Ouija boards when we were growing up. It was like, if there's nothing else, you just don't even want to mess with that. You say, well, it's just a game. I mean, it's mass produced in a factory. It's cardboard and plastic. toy around with it at your own spiritual peril because don't be deceived. Demons are real and playing with things like this opens you up to influence from the demonic forces that are determined to destroy our souls and keep us far from God. The same is true for tarot cards or really any kind of fortune telling. I mean, are most of these people frauds and hucksters? Yeah, undoubtedly. I'm sure they are, but they're opening themselves up to demonic influence on a regular daily basis. And any kind of association with them as a result opens us up to that same kind of influence. And I'd extend that same warning to horoscopes in the world. I mean, how anyone can really believe that the movement of planets is somehow influencing my relationships here on Earth, I have no idea. But it doesn't matter because ongoing relationship with horoscopes, trying to seek power, influence, and direction from abstract spiritual forces around us is opening ourselves up to demonic influence in our lives. Those are the obvious examples. You've all heard them before. It's cliche in a Christian setting. Don't do these things. Great. What about the less obvious examples? You know, we live in a culture where even among Christians, it's become kind of passe to question the kind or quality or quantity of media we consume, let alone begin to critique or even condemn it. After all, aren't we freeing Christ to watch and listen to whatever we want? I'm not calling for a boycott of anything in particular, but I'm suggesting that we should be pausing and praying about what we listen to, what we watch, what we fill our minds with on a regular daily basis. I mean, TV is not just some sort of casual relationship. The average American spends four to five hours a day consuming TV. I mean, for you, two hours a day. Maybe it's only one hour a day, but that's a significant amount of time over the course of a year. Music is not a casual relationship. Many people have music going literally from the moment they wake up till the moment they go to sleep at night. We're walking around, we've got music on the radio when we wake up, it's in the car all the way to work, we have headphones on at work, we listen to it in the gym, we come home, maybe have a break in the evening for dinner, then we listen to it to go to sleep at night. That's not a casual relationship. We're deeply committed, and honestly, I'm kind of tired of people sort of allow or condone certain kinds of music just on the basis, well, I don't listen to the words, I just like the music. Really? Listen to the words. These are terrible. Or people will say, well, I can watch these shows on TV. I mean, those scenes that are kind of inappropriate, they don't really affect me anymore. They don't affect you anymore. Great. How about you not let your conscience get dulled? and read what God's word says about our faithfulness to God. And as Paul said early in Corinthians, the importance of fleeing from any kind of sexual immorality. I mean, how can we sit in here on Sundays and profess to want to live for Christ while filling our minds every waking moment of the rest of the week with media and influences and voices that are telling us something completely different? Now Paul would say, using Paul's words, Spotify, or Netflix, or HBO, or any of these things, do they have power in themselves? No, they're nothing, they're just apps, they're just tools, they're just technology. But when we let spiritual pride, and that's what Paul's talking about here, when we let spiritual pride grab ahold of our hearts, and we no longer think of ourselves as capable of being corrupted, and instead we believe that we're somehow immune to all this demonic influence, then we are on a course to a very dangerous place. I mean, even something as innocuous as the music we listen to or the shows we watch can be, can be when left unchecked, unquestioned, an avenue for demonic influences, forces to influence our hearts and mind. Now, is all of this being legalistic? Am I being too uptight, too conservative, too rigid? Maybe some of you think so, and that's fine, but consider this. In our passage today, Paul is clear. The Bible is clear. Demonic forces are real, and we ignore them at our own peril. In our passage today, Paul says we are to flee from idolatry as a result. Not like, hey, maybe it's a good idea if you You know, if you can, just try and avoid it, but it's no big deal. No, he says, flee, get out of there. And in our passage today, Paul says, we cannot have fellowship with Jesus and demons at the same time. So I'd ask you, what are the things, the relationships, what kind of shows or music or hobbies or artists, what things, if continued in practice without adequate thought and care, might be drawing us away from Christ? And for any of you who still firmly and resolutely feel, Jonathan, you're being too extreme, I'm kind of above all this. I got this. I'm challenged by what Paul said in the passage Michael preached on last week. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. I don't want to fall. I don't want to see any of you fall. So please let us commit together to be more vigilant about the ways in which our culture might be influencing us. Now for those of you who may still be thinking that I'm just pushing way too hard and far in this issue of involvement with the demonic forces of this world, we'll go ahead and look at the last verse in our passage for today, verse 22. Paul concludes his exhortation to the Corinthians with a very strong Word of warning. He says, shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? It can be a little disconcerting to think about God as being jealous. I mean, God is perfect and holy and righteous and just. Isn't jealousy like a bad word? And in my life I know that it is because for me it usually just means I want something that somebody else has or that I feel that I deserve and they have it so now I want it. But in God, the phrase is used to describe his perfect, holy, and righteous possessiveness for his people. He created us. He rescued the people out of Egypt. He gave them a land. He instituted this covenant. Jesus laid down his life for us so we could be saved and live in relationship with him. He has a right to be possessive over us. He has an intense yearning for those who have committed spiritual infidelity to return to him. And then the part that we don't like to think about, but this jealousy for his people clearly involves a kind of holy and righteous anger and indignation regarding their sin. So to those who would consider themselves to be above all this stuff, Paul challenges them. Do you really think that you're stronger than God? Do you? And the same challenge extends to us as well. For those of us who would consider ourselves to be smarter or more enlightened or somehow less susceptible to influence from the demonic forces of this world. Paul says, really, would you go up against the word of God himself? Would you challenge him? Are you stronger than he is? And the answer, of course, is no. Far be it from us that we would ever consider such a thing. In conclusion, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, we live in a very different cultural context than the Corinthians. We don't have temples to Artemis and Athena on every street corner, and most of us are rarely, if ever, invited to go and fellowship with pagans in a temple somewhere. So then, what do we do with Paul's command to avoid such situations? It would be easy to conclude, well, I don't have that temptation, I don't have to worry about this, that I'm good, we can move on to the next thing. But to think that would be to ignore the underlying message of this passage, which is, I've already said, involves a stern warning against all kinds of spiritual pride. And specifically, a spiritual pride that denies the reality of demons at work in our world. A spiritual pride which elevates our own strength and convinces us that we are immune to all negative influences. But just like the slow drip, drip, drip of water can over time erode huge mountains of stone, so too can the slow drip, drip, drip of these demonic forces at work in the world slowly erode even the strongest Christian, changing our hearts, turning our minds slowly away from Christ. Now admittedly, the ditch that many people from our grandparents' generation fell into was kind of an extreme legalism, right? They clearly saw this reality of demonic influences and they said, you know, we need to draw a firm and hard line to separate ourselves from it all. But of course, in the process, they set up a false dichotomy because they said, you know, we're pristine and perfect, so if we could just keep all the sin out there, then we're set, right? And what they got wrong was minimizing or perhaps even completely denying the fact that we're all born sinners, that our hearts are little idle factories. I mean, I don't need to watch TV to teach me how to lie, to cheat, or to steal. I don't need to listen to whatever on the radio to teach me to be greedy, arrogant, or proud, or lustful. I'm an expert at all these things all by myself. I don't need their help. But the danger today is that in our desire to reject that kind of walled off us versus them mentality, we've actually moved to a place where we live and act almost as if Satan didn't really exist at all. We're so concerned with not being thought of as prudish or close-minded or legalistic or uptight that we end up declaring nothing to be off limits. And we delude ourselves into thinking that this is good, healthy, and even sensible. We're the enlightened ones. We're so much more advanced than our ignorant parents or grandparents. I mean, look at us. We can drink whatever we want and however much we want. We can gamble and it's not a problem. I can watch all kinds of R-rated movies and who knows what kind of shows on cable TV and none of it affects me because we're freeing Christ and I'm somehow above all of that. And we lie and we tell ourselves it has no impact on our spiritual lives whatsoever. And as I was studying for this passage, I would say I completely disagree. And I challenge you. to pray this week about how far perhaps you might have found yourself drifting into this way of thinking. And I challenge you to pray for the Lord to reveal to you the very real spiritual forces that are at work in this world and perhaps even beginning to work in your life as well. And finally though, on a positive note, I challenge you to put all of your effort into running towards God. Flee idolatry, Paul says, but run towards God. Don't let fear of idolatry and demons force you into a posture of fear and hiding. Jesus tells us not to be fearful or anxious about anything. Why? Because he's given us the Holy Spirit to empower us. If we had more time, we could look at Ephesians chapter 6 and all the tools and resources he's given us to fight, to wage war against these forces in the world. But the surest way to resist the demonic influences of this world is to throw all our efforts, all our energy into pursuing God. You know, as bad as everything was in Corinth, Paul never told them, You guys should get out of town, go start a new community over there with all the other perfect Christians. Instead, the most certain safeguard against idolatry in whatever form it might take is to love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. So it's set up here. One of the daily spiritual habits that I can fold into into my life to help me and my family pursue Christ, to pursue God this year? What are we actively doing to pursue these goals in our personal lives and in the lives of our family on a daily basis? Because the more we pursue God, the more we'll be able to flee from idolatry and resist these demonic forces that are at work in the world. Well, would you bow your heads with me as we pray? Lord, we are humbled when we think about the enormity of the sacrifice that you made to rescue us from sin, to bring us out of this dominion of darkness, this world that is ruled by Satan, to rescue us from the sin that is embedded so deep in our hearts that we fight with on a daily basis. Lord, you sent your son to die, not to just give nice teachings or to point the way, but to be the way for us to be saved, to be brought out of that and into the kingdom of your son whom you love. And Lord, you call us now your children. You brought us into a new covenantal relationship with yourself and I pray for strength to resist these demonic forces in the world and to pursue you, Lord. with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We cannot do this without your help. So Lord, I pray for your spirit to move in our lives this week. In Jesus' name, amen.