We looked at verse 25 through verse 27 last week. We're going to read down to the end of the chapter, really to the beginning of the next chapter this morning. But for the sake of context, let's go back and begin our reading at verse 23. All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good but the good of his neighbor. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any questions on the ground of conscience. For the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any questions on the ground of conscience. And this is the beginning of our text this morning. But if someone says to you, This has been offered in sacrifice, then do not eat it. For the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience. I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced? Because of that for which I give thanks. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God. Just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that they may be saved. And the first verse of chapter 11, in my humble opinion, belongs in chapter 10, where it says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Now, as I've been doing, I want to, again, read our text this morning from the Amplified Bible, verse 28. But if someone tells you this has been offered in sacrifice to an idol, do not eat it. out of consideration for the person who informed you and for conscience sake. That is, I mean for the sake of his conscience, not yours. Do not eat it. For why should another man's scruples apply to me and my liberty of action be determined by his conscience? If I partake of my food with thankfulness, why am I accused and evil spoken of? because of that for which I give thanks. So then, whether you eat or drink or whatever you may do, do all to the honor and glory of God. Do not let yourselves be hindrances by giving offense to the Jews, or to the Greeks, or to the church of God. Do not lead others into sin by your mode of life. Just as I myself strive to please, to accommodate myself to the opinions, desires, and interests of others, adapting myself to all men in everything I do, not aiming at or considering my own profit and advantage, but that of many in order that they may be saved. Pattern after me, follow my example as I imitate and follow Christ, the Messiah. And as I normally do, I would invite you to keep your Bible open to these verses and we're gonna consider some things from these verses for a little while this morning. Well, as I said a moment ago, we've come down to the end of chapter 10, but we've not only come to the end of chapter 10, we've come down to the end of a particular section or part of this epistle. This section began at chapter eight, verse one, and when you work your way through chapter eight, chapter nine, and chapter 10, you discover that all of those chapters are joined together in a context, and then when you come to chapter 11, verse two, he begins to address a different subject. And as we've worked our way through these chapters, he's answering a question that was posed to him about whether or not it was acceptable for them as believers to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols. And the greater issue is not just the eating of meat, but the issue of idolatry and the fact that they had been saved out of an idolatrous culture. And as Christians, they had to live in this society. And he was giving them guidance as to their relationship to the world around them. And of course, their relationship in being obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we all probably in different seasons of life and in different contexts, we all wrestle with that. If we love Christ, we want to please him, right? If we love him, we want to obey him. If we love him, we want our life to be pleasing to him. But then we live in this world and we continually have to wrestle with, shall I do this or shall I allow my family to do this? Are we forbidden to do this? Should we not do this? And this is something that the individual believer And oftentimes, the father of the family often has to try to go to the Word of God, seek help of the Spirit of God, and maybe even counsel from other believers to try to navigate what should I do so that I glorify God, please Him, but how am I to act and how am I to live in relation to the world? around me. Now Paul has talked about their liberty, but he's also talked about the importance of love. It is true that the Christian is free in many respects and that they have the right to determine for themselves in matters that are not strictly forbidden in scripture, but it's also true that we have a responsibility to one another. We should love one another enough that we're willing to say no to something that may be to our own advantage if it would be a blessing and a help and not a hindrance to the spiritual life of other people. You know, most of us would agree that it is, you know, pretty, it's pretty bad to go through life with the attitude is I don't care what this does to anybody else. That's a pretty poor attitude for living, right? I don't care if it hurts somebody else. I don't care if it bothers them. I don't care if it upsets them. I don't care if it, you know, if they can't figure it out, it's not my problem. Have you ever worked in a place where people are like that? I don't care if it causes other people problem. I'm gonna do what I wanna do and then, you know, it causes other people all kinds of heartache and difficulty and problems. We're not to live that way, especially as children of God. Now listen, everybody in life lives by you know, kind of a framework. these principles upon which they live. People of the world do that. Like for instance, we live in a world where people's framework is as long as it brings me pleasure, I'm gonna go for it, right? Or as long as it brings me profit, I'm gonna go for it. As long as it will enrich me, or as long as it will please my flesh, I'm going to go for it no matter what the consequences are, no matter who else it affects, no matter who else it hurts. That's kind of the framework upon which they base their decisions and the way that they navigate life. But the Christian is not to live by the same framework that the world does, right? The Christian has been called out of the world, saved by God's grace, made a child of the king, adopted into God's family, A Christian is part of a whole new family, the Christian family. We have responsibility, number one, to the master who rescued us and redeemed us, but also to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. And the reality is that we are to live by a completely different set of principles and by a completely different framework than the people of this world. So when they ask him about the issue of eating meat or food that had been offered to idols, whether it was in the context of going into a meat market and purchasing it, or whether it was in the context of being invited to a meal or a social gathering in which that meat might potentially be served, Paul has told them, yes, you're free. You have Christian liberty. You're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. The meat is not anything because the idol is not anything. So, you know, an idol has no real substance or existence and the meat is not some way magically corrupted because a portion of it was offered in sacrifice to this idol. But the other thing he says you gotta consider is what will the effect of that have upon, number one, your brothers and sisters in Christ, but also what will the effect of that possibly have upon the unbelievers around you? Now Paul has demonstrated the fact that the principle by which he lived was the principle of selfless love. The whole of chapter nine pretty much is made up of him saying there are rights that I have that I forego for the sake of others. There are things that I could demand. You know, I could demand certain things as an apostle of Jesus Christ, but I have for the sake of others and so that there would be no hindrance to the gospel, I have not demanded those rights. I have foregone them out of love and concern for other people. And he is calling upon them to live by that same principle or to live in the same way. And really at all kinds of come, it kind of comes down to the end of the chapter, and we've been seeing this over the course of the last two weeks. Look at verse 23 and verse 24. He said, all things are lawful, and it's in parentheses, like maybe that was one of their arguments. Well, it's lawful for us to do this. And he says, yeah, but all things are not helpful. It may be true that it's not forbidden in God's moral law for you to do a certain thing, but that doesn't mean the doing of it will be helpful, right? And the other thing, all things are lawful, but not all things build up. Not everything has the effect of building up our brothers or sisters or even building us up. There are things that we may be able to say, well, the word of God does not forbid the doing of this thing. But the other issue is, but will it be helpful and will it build up or edify the church or my brothers or sisters? And then the verses that we looked at last week, he says, you know, eat whatever is sold in the meat market without asking any questions. You're free to do that. And the other thing he says, if you're invited to go to an unbeliever's house for a meal, you are free to do that and do it without raising any questions. But today he brings up something else that might occur at such a place. And really in the latter part of the chapter, these verses that we're gonna look at this morning, basically Paul really brings forth some very high principles for Christian living. These things to me are like a framework upon which you can navigate many of the questions that you have to wrestle with in life. Now, Again, you have Christian liberty. If it's not forbidden in the word of God, you've got to navigate that and determine for you and your family what you should or should not do if it's not plainly and clearly forbidden in the word of God. But in my opinion, what Paul does here at the end of chapter 10 is he gives us some very important principles for Christian living that can help us navigate those questions. There are things that we should maybe have in our heart and mind, and as we have to wrestle with an issue, these things should be governing principles that help us to come to a right determination in regard to them. Now I'm gonna give them all three to you up front, and then we're gonna go back and look at them in our text and consider them one by one, and then we'll take communion this morning. Here's the first one. The first great principle he talks about here is don't offend. Don't offend. And we'll talk about that more in a minute. The other principle, the second one is do everything for God's glory. Do everything to the glory of God. And then the last principle is do as Christ would do. Do as Christ would do. And I think you'll see these clearly in these verses that we look at this morning. Now, don't offend. Now notice what he says in verse 28. He's already just told him, he's already told him, eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any questions on the ground of conscience. If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any questions on the ground of conscience. But then he brings up another possible scenario. But if someone says to you, this has been offered in sacrifice, then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience. I do not mean your conscience, but his. So he makes the point here that yes, you have Christian liberty. Yes, you are free. He makes that clear statement of Christian freedom and liberty in verse 25 through verse 27. But then he raises the possibility that even though you are free to eat, there is possibly another reason why you shouldn't. And that is if there was someone there that pointed out the fact that the meat that you were about to consume was offered in sacrifice to idols. Now, who could these people possibly be? Who would point this out? Here's the scenario. You've been invited to an unbeliever's home in Corinth. They agreed to go. They went to the home. They were sitting down. They were eating or preparing to eat food. And all of a sudden, someone leans across the table and said, oh, I want you to know that this food, a portion of it was offered in a pagan sacrifice. That changes things all together. According to Paul, that changes things all together. Because prior to that, he says, eat and don't ask any questions. Here he says, don't eat, right? Here he immediately says, do not eat of it. Now, who could these people be that would point this out? Well, I think it could be one of two people that Paul is talking about. First of all, it could be another Christian who is there. The other Christian is there, and the other Christian is what we would call the weaker brother. They do not yet understand, they don't really understand the truth in all of its fullness. So to them, this meat is somehow changed or affected by the fact that a portion of it was offered in sacrifice to a pagan deity. So possibly it's a weaker brother, a weaker Christian, a younger Christian, one that has not yet come to the degree of understanding that the Lord in his grace may have brought you to. So because of that, they still view an idol maybe as something that it's not, and they may view this mead as maybe defiling in nature because a portion of it would have been offered in sacrifice to a pagan deity. Now the mead is just mead. Paul has made that plain, right? And the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. All that God has given us is for our physical good and our physical sustenance and our physical health. The meat is not materially changed or somehow defiled or affected because someone used it in a wicked and foolish way, right? It's just meat. And the idol has no real existence and no real substance. But if there's a believer there that doesn't understand that and they bring this up to you, Paul is saying, don't eat of it for their sake. It doesn't change the truth that you have Christian liberty, but don't eat of it for their sake. Now, also, I think that he could also be drawing a picture where it could possibly be an unbeliever. an unbeliever who realizes that you're a professing Christian, right? And as a professing Christian, maybe you used to live in the way that they lived, and you went to the same false temple that they went to, and you worship the same false God that they worshiped, and all of a sudden the Lord in his grace has saved you. and you have separated from that kind of lifestyle, and you have separated from that false worship, and now you're a follower of Jesus Christ, and you're witnessing to your unbelieving family, you're witnessing to your unbelieving friends, and all of a sudden you're sitting at a meal with an unbeliever, which is not in and of itself wrong, but you're about to eat meat that that unbeliever knows has been offered, or a portion of it has been offered in sacrifice to a false god, And all of a sudden he goes, hey, what about this? You say you're a Christian. You say that you don't follow the gods that I follow anymore. You say that you don't worship the gods. You say there's one God and that you worship him and that you worship him alone. And all of a sudden here you are sitting at the table with us and you're eating meat that has been sacrificed to an idol. Now, either way, both of those are a potential problem. It would be a potential problem, he said, if you eat, because it could hurt a young, weaker, immature Christian. But it also could be a potential problem because you've been trying to witness the gospel to those who are lost around you, and they may not be able to understand, even though you know that it's just meat, they may not be able to understand why you are eating meat. that has been used in pagan rituals and pagan sacrifices. Now, he says don't eat for the sake of conscience, but not your conscience, because your conscience is free, right? Because you understand the truth. You understand that it's just meat, and you understand that an idol has no real existence and no real substance, but he says don't eat for the sake of their conscience. Don't eat for their sake. Don't offend them. Don't needlessly offend them. Now I understand there are times that we can't help but offend people. He's not saying compromise the truth rather than offend because we're never told to do that. The gospel is offensive to the natural man. There are elements of the gospel that is offensive. The message of Jesus Christ was offensive to the Jew. Paul did not quit preaching because he didn't want to offend the Jews. He never did that. There are elements of the gospel that are offensive to the unsaved and unregenerate man. And that's just a fact. He doesn't say compromise so that you don't offend. But what he's saying is, do not offend unnecessarily. Don't offend needlessly. Don't offend just for the sake of offense. What he's essentially saying is, you can do without eating that meat for the sake of others, right? You can do without eating, you can do without participating in that for the good of others. You don't have to do that. He's not saying that, The Christian is to compromise so that they don't offend. We're never to compromise the truth. We're never to compromise the gospel. But at the same time, we're never to go through life needlessly hurting people or needlessly offending people. If something that I'm about to do, I know it's going to hurt a brother or sister in Christ. I'm not to get up on my box and say, well, I have Christian liberty. I don't care what it does to them. I don't care that they don't understand. I don't care that because they're immature. I'm not to needlessly hurt them or needlessly offend them. And I think the same principle holds true with an unbeliever. I want unbelievers to be saved. I want my unbelieving family to be saved. I want my unbelieving friends to be saved. I want my unbelieving co-workers to be saved. Now I'm not going to in any way compromise the message of Jesus Christ, lest it offend them. But at the same time, I'm not going to deliberately offend them. I want them to be open to hear the message of Christ. And if I live in an offensive way toward them, I hinder them in hearing and receiving the message. Now, this raises a question. And the question is kind of posed, and I gotta confess to you, the way that this reads, I have a hard time getting my mind around it, because the way that it reads, it almost seems like a contradiction. It's not, but it almost seems like it. Verse 28. If someone says to you, this has been offered in sacrifice, then don't eat it. For the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience. Whose conscience? Not mine, but theirs. I do not mean your conscience, but his. And then there are two questions posed. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because that for which I give thanks? This seems to me a little bit difficult to understand. The question is, should our liberty be governed by the conscience of other people? Well, it's true that we have freedom and we have liberty, But Paul, some believe that what he's doing here is he may be voicing or writing an objection that they may have raised to what he said. All right, you just told me I have liberty, but now you're telling me I don't have liberty because my liberty is bound by the consciences of other people. He may be addressing an objection that they may have raised to what he had just said. Or he may be just making the point that even though this may seem wrong, but even though in the way that we think that it may seem wrong because I'm basically, you know, binding my liberty or giving away my liberty for the sake of someone else's conscience, he may be making the point that even though it may not seem right, this would be the best course for the sake of other people. But now the principle is real basic. You know what the principle is? Don't offend unnecessarily or needlessly. Don't do something that will unnecessarily offend. And he says it down in verse 32. Look at verse 32. Give no offense. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God. Now you know who that includes? Everybody. Jews, Gentiles, and Christians. That's the three categories that he speaks of. Now, Paul lived this out. All you gotta do is read the New Testament, you'll discover that Paul lived this out. He did not do things that deliberately offended the Gentiles so that their hearts and minds would be prejudiced against him and be closed to the hearing of the gospel. But at the same time, he did not do things that needlessly offended the Jews, so that their hearts and minds would be closed to his message and not hear the gospel that he would preach to them. And you know, the other category that he speaks of is the church. Don't needlessly offend our brothers and sisters in Christ. We did this yesterday, and I give us an example. It was such a joy to be here yesterday and it was encouraging to me, I think it was encouraging to you. Many of the people came by on the way out and told me what a blessing it was to them, how grateful they were that we did this. But we didn't play the piano. There's absolutely nothing wrong with musical accompaniment in the worship of God. And Brother Sam, we've talked about this, they know that, they understand that and they believe that. But you gotta realize, A lot of the people who were here yesterday, all they have ever known is worship in the context of non-instrumental music. We don't want to be a stumbling block. We don't want to do something in a way needlessly that would offend them or hinder them. You know, the first time we had this last year, there was a lady that was coming from Tennessee. They ended up having to take her back home because she just could not bring herself to walk in the door of a Baptist church because of everything that she had been taught growing up. Now listen, now that wasn't right. What she was taught wasn't right, and the way she was feeling wasn't right, but that doesn't mean she wasn't feeling it. There's no need to unnecessarily offend. And that's a good principle to live by. As much as it is possible, as much as it lies within your power, do not deliberately do something, even though you may have the right to do it, and even though it might not be wrong for you to do it, don't do it. If it's gonna be offensive to someone, and close their heart to the gospel or if it's gonna hurt your brother or sister in Christ and hinder them in their walk with God. Don't offend. Second great principle to be a framework to guide us in navigating those decisions we have to make in life. Do everything to the glory of God. Look what he says, verse 31. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. No matter what you do, do it to the glory of God. Live in such a way so as to bring glory and honor upon the name of God. Now this reminds us of the fact that as Christians, everything we do reflects upon Him, right? Everything we do reflects upon Him. Everything a Christian does Because people know you're a Christian, everything you do reflects either favorably or unfavorably upon the God that you say that you love, serve, and worship. You say, well, I don't like that idea. It doesn't matter whether you like it, it's true nonetheless. Everything we do, either favorably or unfavorably, reflects upon God. I love the story, and I told you before church, Sam told a story about, you know, getting real fleshy one day over a VCR tape and throwing a fit at the VCR store because they said he never brought a tape back and he was convinced he had brought it back and he got real mad and irate, went home, told his wife that they were not doing business there anymore because of the problem they had. Goes over, his wife goes over, hits the button on the VCR and the tape that was in question was in the VCR. and he had to go back and eat crow, you know, and apologize. And, you know, it's just an example of how that everything we do reflects either favorably upon God or unfavorably upon Him, because we profess to be His followers. We profess to love Him. We profess to worship Him. Paul commands that our actions are to bring, that we should, when we're navigating life, one of the great questions that we're to ask is, will this bring glory and honor to my Savior? Will this bring glory and honor to God? And notice he said this involves whatever we do. He even brings it down to the point of eating and drinking. Now that's because of the context in which he says this in. The issue here was whether or not to eat food that had been offered in sacrifice to idols. He said, now, if you're invited to an unbeliever's home, eat without asking any questions for the sake of conscience. But if someone brings it up that this was indeed used in a pagan ceremony, don't eat for their sake. And he says, whatever you do, whether eating or drinking, do it to the glory of God. Even in eating and drinking, we can do it to the glory of God. This touches everything in life. Do you know that you can do your job in a way that glorifies God or you can not do your job in a way that brings dishonor upon the name of God? You can run your business in a way that glorifies God or you can run your business in a way that does not honor and glorify God. You can relate to your family in a way that glorifies God, or you can relate to your family in a way that does not glorify God. This reminds us of the truth that there is no separation between the sacred and the secular in life. Now think about this. If I told you, do something spiritual this week, What would immediately be the thing that your mind would go to? Well, I'm gonna pray every day this week, or I'm gonna read the Bible every day this week, or I'm gonna get together with my wife and my kids, and we're gonna pray, we're gonna read the Bible. Or I'm gonna go to some kind of a religious meeting, or I'm gonna do some act of religious service. Do something spiritual, do something for God. You'd be thinking, well, I'm gonna go to church, I'm gonna read the Bible, I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna witness to someone, I'm gonna do some act of kindness or some act of service. But do you know, according to the Bible, everything that we do in life, even the way we exercise our responsibilities in life, can be done as an act of worship for the glory of God, everything. the way you run your business, the way you do your job. Now, listen, if that ever got a hold of us, I was about to say if we ever got a hold of that, but that would really need to get a hold of us, wouldn't it? If that ever got a hold of us, think of how differently we would act and we would think of our work or our play or our leisure or all the things in life. This is a great principle to live by, and it reminds us there's no separation in life between the sacred and the secular. For instance, you may be thinking, I'm in church this morning, I'm doing something in the spiritual and sacred category of life, but you also may think that when I get up in the morning and go to work, I'm gonna be doing something in the secular and natural sphere of life. But there is no such spheres. Everything can be done to the glory of God. Everything can be done in a way that honors God. It can also be done in a way that dishonors Him. And this is a great guide to govern us in questionable matters. Have you ever had to say, I'm at a crossroads here, what should I do here? What should be my response to this? What should be my action here? What should I do? Should I do this or not do it? Should I take this opportunity or pass on this opportunity? Should I purchase this or not purchase it? Should I go there or not go there? Should I take that job or not take that job? Should I move to that city or not move to that city? Should I be part of that church or not part of that church? Should I start that business or not start that business? The third great principle he talks about here is do as Christ would do. Verse 33, Paul said, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do. Now think about that statement. Just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that they may be saved. And then he says, be imitators of me. as I am of Christ. Paul calls upon them to imitate him. Can you imagine? How many of you would say, follow me, I'm a trustworthy God. Imitate me, do what I do. But Paul could say that, right? Follow me, live the way I live. Live by the principles I live by. Follow in my footsteps. Now why could Paul say that? He could say that, and let me tell you, him saying that was not a matter of pride, but it was a matter of humble honesty. He's saying I'm living in a way that could be an example to you. I'm living in a way that could be a faithful and correct guide to you. Makes us as parents think, doesn't it, about the little feet that are following behind us and following our footsteps. Are you a faithful guide to your sons and daughters in the way that you live life? Paul was an imitator of Jesus. And let me tell you something, the only way, in my opinion, the only way that any human being can say, follow me, and it be wise counsel, is if they can say, because I'm following Jesus. I'm living as Jesus. would live. I'm living and doing what Jesus would do. He's saying that ultimately if you follow my example, you'll be following Jesus because I'm walking in his footsteps and doing what he would do. And all you gotta do is look at the context. The context here is a life of selfless love. Notice, I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that they may be saved. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." He was living in such a way as to not seek his own personal advantage or pleasure, but he was living in such a way to do his good. He was living in such a way to do as much good to as many people as possible in hopes that they would be saved. That's the way he lived. And you know who that sounds like? Jesus. That sounds like Jesus. Someone asked the question one time, if I was filled with the Holy Spirit, what would I be like? Someone said, you'd be like Jesus. You'd be more like Jesus. If I followed in the footsteps of Paul, what would my life look like? Well, it would not be perfect, but it would look a whole lot like Jesus, the way Jesus would have acted, the way he would have responded. Now, think about this. Are these not three important questions? Whenever you've gotta make a decision about something or navigate something, you may say, well, the word of God does not forbid that I do this. That may be absolutely true. I'm free to do this. That may be absolutely true. But think about these three questions. Will this offend someone and bring harm to them spiritually? Will this bring glory and honor to God who saved me and is my king and master? And is this what Jesus would do? What would Jesus do? Those are some pretty high principles. To govern and guide us through life. Is this going to hurt someone spiritually? Is this going to bring honor and glory to God? And is this something that Jesus would do? And would it be Christ-like for me to do it? And then, in my opinion, what Paul is saying is, you put it through that, you run the matter through that framework of principles. And then you're free to decide, right? You're free to decide. Run it through. Those are the questions you've got to ask yourself. Legalism in the church, legalism develops a system in which the crowd or the church or the Christians shame other people into behaving a certain way because you're not, it really makes them lord of your conscience. That's wrong. But the Christian is free when the Bible doesn't forbid you to do something, the Christian is free But the Christian should look around and go, okay, I'm free to do this. God's word doesn't say thou shalt not. But is this gonna hurt anybody else if I do it? Could this potentially hurt a weaker Christian or, you know, offend a lost person because they don't understand? Does this bring glory and honor to God? And is this really something Jesus would do? Once you've run it through that and you're honest and you've been honest with yourself and honest with God, you're free to do whatever you want to do. Right? Because I'm not the Lord of your conscience.