Let me invite you to take your Bibles, please, and go to 1 Corinthians 8. 1 Corinthians 8, and while you're turning there, just let me express how encouraged I was by the praise service last Sunday afternoon. It was a great day all together, being able to be together in fellowship, but also just really encouraged to hear how God is at work among us. and to see him exalted through the praise of his people. What a blessing it was, and I hope that it was encouragement to you, and it's a great way to start the year, to seek the Lord through prayer and then try, lift up our voices to exalt him as well. I was talking with my grandchildren this week and trying to help them understand the difference between knowledge and wisdom. My little way of always focusing on knowledge is you know the facts. Understanding is you know how they relate to each other. And wisdom is you understand the significance and application of them. You live them out. and the way I was trying to help my grandson recognize is that knowledge is knowing that tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad, right? I mean, just practically speaking, it is technically a fruit, but if you know that, then you understand how it relates to other fruits, you'll go, eh, that one doesn't belong in the fruit salad. Right, and someone might have that fact, but not recognize the significance of that fact. And that's part of the problem at Corinth about the issue of food, which has been offered to idols. They have some knowledge of things, that an idol is nothing, that food doesn't commend you to God or away from God. And those things are actually true. but they're lacking some components of understanding about that. They're not taking everything into consideration that needs to be taken into consideration. And they're also not translating it into the right kind of behavior toward others that's described as love in this passage. And instead of their knowledge moving through understanding to wisdom, which produces love, it's actually causing them to become arrogant and puffed up. And so their knowledge is actually, instead of being something of benefit to them and to the congregation at Corinth, has actually become something dangerous, both to them and the congregation at Corinth. We looked at the first half of chapter eight last week. We're gonna look at the second half this week. So if you would please follow along as I read, beginning in verse seven. However, not all have this knowledge, but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrifice to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. But food will not commend us to God. We are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. You know, it's common in our day and really in some ways, probably since the 1960s, the idea of love as an ethical principle has been distorted in a way that has caused sometimes believers to react negatively to an emphasis on it. All right, so situation ethics began to be pushed forward in the middle of the 20th century. So there are no absolutes. It just depends on the situation and circumstance. So the thing that controls you in every situation or circumstance is love. What's the loving thing to do? But apart from a biblical definition of love, that ultimately leads into really a kind of feeling-oriented subjectivism that actually undercuts all moral absolutes. So it might be loving to actually do something that's morally wrong if it benefits somebody. And so all of a sudden people can start to justify actions that were not actually right based on principles of truth. And that's carried all the way. I mean, that's why, you know, you'll hear, you'll see signs that say, love is love, or see a bunch of guys with helmets on that are trying to kill each other with choose love on the back of the helmet. It's sort of like a little ironic there. But the point is it's trying to say, well, love's the thing. But then no definition of what love is, so it just becomes a sentimental guiding force of some sort. And so it's easy for us to go, no, it's not about love, it's about truth. But a biblical response actually can't go there, because do you remember what the first commandment is and the second commandment? The first is love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength. And the second is love your neighbor as you love yourself. And the scriptures say, on these hang all the law and the prophets. That is a genuine understanding of love in relationship to God and in relationship to others actually is a foundational, fundamental ethical principle. But the key is understanding how the scriptures would define love and what exactly that looks like. We can't abandon it or else we go from one kind of self-centered ethical collapse to another kind of self-centered ethical collapse, because that's what's happening in Corinth. Well, I know these things. And then they're using their knowledge actually to harm people because they're getting what they want, right? Their knowledge is serving their selfishness. instead of actually issuing forth in love. And so, Paul helps us here in the first part. Remember, eight to 10 are one long piece of biblical apostolic instruction about how to handle the issue of food offered to idols. And so, what Paul does is, work really in a sense in layered approach to teach them principles. He had the authority to just say, stop. But life is often more complex than that. I've already said in these three chapters, you encounter food offered to idols in a variety of different contexts. He talks about it actually being offered in the idol's temple. He talks about that same food, because idols actually don't eat, being taken from the temple and being sold in the marketplace. So here's food that's been offered to an idol and now it's on sale in the meat market. What do you do about that? Or you might show up at somebody's house who's an unbeliever and they're offering you a meal. What should you do? And then especially what should you do if they say, we're eating this meal in honor of such and such a deity. All right, so there's at least four different kinds of circumstances they might encounter. And so Paul's answer isn't a one size fits all answer in the sense of here's the exact action you have to take. It is, in some parts, here's the exact actions you have to take, but it's always, here are the principles that govern why that action is the right action. What is the truth that holds power over our choice? Because that's the way in which we would exhibit our love for God and our love for others. How do we move in a way that puts those principles into practice? And so one of the things you have to do as we're walking through this is remember that it's like when you have a conversation, right? If you're in a conversation with somebody, and let's say that conversation lasts 30 minutes, and in the first five minutes, you're making one point, and then you, in your mind, are adding a second layer to that point and a third layer to that point, but the person listening to you goes, forget those other three points, I'm just gonna take this one. and they're missing the big argument because they just wanna zero in on one part of it. And that's often what happens in chapter eight, because Paul's gonna start with this issue of how love ought to control our choices, and he's gonna say things based on that truth that is consistent with what he's gonna say the rest of the way through. but it also needs to be understood in light of that. You can't just go, well, hey, I heard chapter eight, so I draw my conclusions now. No, it's, I need to hear what he says in chapter eight and understand it in light of everything that Paul's saying, because Paul's not just randomly throwing things out there. He actually is writing with a very clear purpose to help them live in a way that is modeled after the love of Christ, and in fact, demonstrates love for Christ in what they're doing. And the end of chapter eight is basically two directions in which he sort of pushes. The first in verses seven through 11 is that their choices need to reflect their love for other people. Right, that they need to recognize that what they're doing should in fact demonstrate their love for the body of Christ. Look at verse seven, because the first thing he'll say to us is love, biblical love is sensitive to the spiritual condition of other people. Verse seven says, however, not all men have this knowledge. That knowledge he's referring to is that an idol is nothing. There are no gods in this world. There's only one true God and one Lord. And then he says, but not all have this knowledge. So as you live your life, you need to be sensitive to that. You need to be aware of that and recognize that, take that into consideration. And that's not true just of unbelievers. It's also true of what he calls a weak, a weak-conscienced professing believer. I look at the end of verse seven, but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrifice to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled. So it's possible for professing believers to still struggle with sinful issues of their past, in this particular case, that they actually had been a part of these pagan feasts in the temples to idols, and they, in their lost condition, thought that they were actually involved in worshiping gods. I mean, they went to the temples because they thought the gods had some power or authority, they had some obligation to them. Now they've heard about Christ and turned to him, but they're still wrestling with what that all means. They still are struggling with this reality. And so if they eat food offered to an idol, they aren't thinking, well, that idol is just a piece of wood or metal. They're thinking, this is actually to a God. This is an act of worship to a deity of some sort and their conscience, I think he's using it here, something like moral consciousness, awareness of what's morally right or wrong. their conscience because it's weak. In this case, it's weak because they're susceptible to it. And again, there's a cultural gap for us that we probably struggle with a little bit because we don't live ostensibly in this kind of a culture. All right, but I mentioned last week, like let's say in Eastern Africa, where your village is dominated by the presence of the witch doctor and you grew up with a worldview that unless you presented offerings to your ancestors, they would influence the spirits and they could send illness or curses on you. And so you grew up thinking you had to wear little amulets around your waist to protect you from evil spirits. And you had to lay out food on the porch of your house for the ancestors to be satisfied or else evil would come on your home. And you've seen things that we think like are just excluded. but you've actually seen demonic activity happen. And so you're not just thinking like, this is like a Hollywood movie. This is like stuff you've seen. And so it actually has a hold on you that you've heard about Christ and you've turned to Christ because you know you need to be rescued from all of this stuff. But just because you know you've been rescued from this stuff doesn't mean you all of a sudden just like, oh yeah, that was just a joke. That was all nothing. No, you're still wrestling with it. or you've got those tensions, or you grew up in a, say, an Asian context where you were taught so much about how, lots of worldviews, where the well-being of your ancestors is dependent on how much you remember them and care for them, right? The kind of stuff that slips into like the Lion King. when Simba's told, I will be around as long as you remember me. Right, that's a worldview about ancestors who've departed and the responsibility of the living to sustain them by it. And you come to Christ and then you come over to your larger family and that dinner is being offered up to your grandfather. because they're praying to him and depending on him to influence them, and they're trying to sustain him. So if you grew up in that kind of a culture, that wouldn't just like, you don't come to Christ's house and that's all gone. Your conscience is still gonna be fighting with those kinds of things. There's lots of ways in which that is going on. And Paul says that a person whose conscience is still weak is gonna be affected by your actions. So if you're really operating by love, you will take into consideration other people's spiritual condition as you make decisions about what you do or don't do. That's really the point of verse seven. Not all have this knowledge. Some eat as if it is sacrifice to idols. And therefore you need to take that into consideration. You need to think about the impact it may have on them in that regard. So look at now verses eight through 10. Paul says, love is more concerned about their spiritual health than personal freedom. He starts by acknowledging something about food that's true, right? When it's considered in isolation, it is not a spiritual factor in our relationship to God. But food will not commend you or present us to God. We are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat. So Paul, look at verse four real quickly. He, in verse four, dealt with the issue that idols are nothing. Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world and that there is no God but one. All right, so think about it. Eating things sacrificed to idols, right? So that would be food sacrificed to idols. He starts with idols. We know that there actually are no other gods, right? I mean, an idol is actually nothing. So that's what he says in verse four. He doesn't deal with the food question now till verse eight. And now verse eight, he says, food will not commend us to God, right? So you don't actually eat something to present yourself to God as better or worse, right? If you eat, it doesn't make you better. If you eat, it doesn't make you worse. If you don't eat, it doesn't make you better. Food doesn't do that. And so he starts with that reality for them because that seems to be the basis on which they're prepared to just throw open the door to do whatever, right? Idols are nothing, food is nothing. So like, just go eat, enjoy. Demonstrate your knowledge of the truth by doing that. That's why they consider themselves strong and other people weak, because the person who has idols and food joined together as a something is actually weak in their conscience. The idol's nothing, the food is nothing. And if you hold to the truth, you know that. But that's not the ultimate in it. And that's his point. You have to recognize that there is something else at play in it. So look at verse nine. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block for the weak. So he wants them to recognize that if this food is joined to idolatry, then it is going to have some impact on other people that believe idolatry is real. So food may not have any advantage or disadvantage, literally. Right? It literally can't move you toward God and can't move you away from God, but it doesn't sit alone. And so that other person may find themselves disadvantaged or damaged by it if you don't take that into consideration. What does Paul mean by liberty in verse nine? But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. I think the point of verse nine is tied to verse eight, right? So think about this in terms of the progress of God's revelation. Could an Israelite, Under the Mosaic law, actually say verse eight, food is not for the better or for the worse. No, actually, they couldn't. They had all kinds of foods that they couldn't eat without being disobedient to God. Food actually was a part of the rule of life for them, and it had very significant relationship to their obedience to God. But Jesus in the Gospels declared that all food was clean. So now you and I can eat whatever. There you go, all right. You must have had some good bacon for breakfast this morning. We have the freedom, the liberty to eat that. We don't have to worry about it. I don't have to sit down at the table and go, is this kosher? Has this had any connection with anything that makes it unclean and therefore I can't participate in it? I have freedom. I have a right to eat is literally the idea in the text. So I have now this privilege of being able to eat whatever's set in front of me without asking questions for conscience sake, because the earth is the Lord's. It's all good. Well, it's all edible. Well, it all is permissible to eat, all right? We'll put it that way. So I have that wide open door. But that doesn't mean like, so I can eat whatever is the ultimate guideline for me. It is possible that there might be circumstances and situations within which my food choice might be destructive for somebody else. And at that point, the good of the other person takes precedence over my freedom. That's what he's driving home in verse nine. So we have to be careful that we don't use it to the disadvantage or damage of someone else. Look again in verse nine, but take care that this liberty of yours, this freedom or right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you who have knowledge, that is you, the one who has knowledge, dine in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if it is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? The word strengthened there is the word that's translated a number of places, edified. So it's a good choice for strengthened, but you know what it means when you edify somebody, you build them up, you enable them, you strengthen them. So here's Paul's lay of the land, right? He's again, remember I said about chapter eight, Paul is not saying here, it's really okay for you to eat in the idol temple if nobody sees you, right? Because that would be a false conclusion based on what he's saying. It's not just that they see you eating in the idol temple that makes eating in the idol temple a problem. Chapter 10 is gonna say, you can't do it. What he's doing though is making the first level of argument, and the first level of that argument has to do with their love for other people and their love for Christ. And so here's what he's saying. Listen, if this other person who's struggling with the sort of hangover of idolatry in his life, the remnants that are there, that person, is struggling with the fact that idols are nothing and food is nothing. You have that knowledge and technically you're correct in that knowledge, right? You have the truth on your side, but you're not taking into consideration that not all have that knowledge. And in fact, if they see you seated in that temple, eating that meal offered to that idol, they're gonna go, Well, it's okay, right? I mean, if they're doing it, they seem, they've been a believer longer than me. They seem to be gifted in serving God and present themselves as very knowledgeable about the truth. And if they're doing it, well then, you know, it might be okay. And again, I'd say we have to factor in some of the variables. I mean, I just mentioned the one, like you, if you're from a certain cultural background and your family gatherings, the meals are always done as worship to the ancestors. Do you realize what, I mean, chapter 10 would come around and say, well, you can't eat those. All right, so think about this person over here who's just trusted Christ and is now coming to the ramifications of what that means. And here's where it's starting to hurt them, right? They're starting to feel the pinch. They are not able to participate in any kind of family gathering that involves a meal because they're all being offered to the gods. So they have to step away from it. They work in a trade guild where whenever that trade guild gets together, they're offering up something to a god and they have to start to pull back from it. Socially, this factors into almost every variable of their social interactions and they're finding themselves having to pull away from all of those kinds of things that would touch up on idolatry. And so there's this tension in them that they don't want to give up all of those other things, right? They don't care about the idol, but they still think the idol has some reality to it. So the choice they're having is, will I follow Christ exclusively Or is it okay for me to still dabble a little bit with this stuff so that I can keep my family and I can have my economic well-being, that I can live in the society and culture I'm in without being looked at like some kind of outcast? Right, they're feeling the pressure that comes from that kind of a world, because for them, the choice is really about whether they will be entangled in idolatry or they'll be exclusively worshiping Christ. Because they still struggle with the fact that this is an item. And they have to have that part of it. And so that's where the stumbling block part comes in. If they see this more knowledgeable Christian doing something and they're struggling with the rightness of that because they know that there's some idolatrous worship connected to it, and they know the choices between exclusive worship of the true and living God or dabbling in idolatry, think about how significant just the concept of dabbling in idolatry is. You don't dabble with idolatry. That's what chapter 10 will say. Can you sit at the table of demons and the table of the Lord? Can we provoke the Lord like that? There's no minor idolatry. There's no acceptable toleration of disloyalty to the true and living God. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm gonna go to that meal, but I'm gonna have my fingers crossed. You know, as if you can somehow subvert the false worship that's happened. So they're pushing these weakened conscience Christians to a kind of decisive choice, which is down a pathway away from God. That's why it's called a stumbling block. And it's not just a stumbling block. Look what he says in verse 11. He says, the weak is ruined, right? And then again, wounding their conscience in verse 12. I mean, he's talking about a serious, serious departure from the truth. So when food is joined to idolatry, it can become a stumbling block for those who are struggling with this issue. And the end of verse 10 is really crucial understanding what it means to be defiled and to stumble, right? Paul isn't concerned about a minor issue here. If he strengthened to eat things to sacrifice to idol, you actually are causing spiritual damage to him. So let me just step back from this a second and just a quick contrast with Romans 14, because sometimes people throw Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 through 10 into the discussion as if they're about the exact same thing. And they're not actually about the exact same thing, right? In Romans 14, the strong are those who can eat and the weak are those who cannot eat. Because in Romans 14, the issue is whether or not you have faith to do something that God has given you permission to do. Right, go back to what I said about Jesus making all foods clean. Right, so you grew up as a Jewish young person, taught all the rules about kosher food, and you come to Christ, and all of a sudden you're with Gentiles, and they're eating things that you were told all your life you can't eat, and you're struggling with the freedom to do that. Right? They're going, oh, this is all clean. Jesus said it's all clean. And you're going, I don't know if I can do that. So the reason you're weak is because you're not, you don't have the faith to do what Jesus said you could do. That's why Paul sides with the strong in Romans 14, but tells the strong not to harm the weak. Right? And so there's an issue there about what we might call debatable things within the consciences of believers, but the scriptures are clearly on the side of the people who can eat the food and can not observe the day. Because there are no holy days and there is no kosher food. So strength is, I don't have to observe those holy days, and I can eat that food. Weakness is, I still need to keep the Jewish religious calendar, and I need to keep the kosher laws. That's a different world than, you come over to 1 Corinthians 8, and you're talking about pagan idolatry, and it's not at all, if you're strong, you can do it, weak can't do it. Now, chapter 10, he's gonna say, no believer can do it. You can't eat food offered to idols if it's being offered to an idol, right? If it's in the temple being offered to an idol, you cannot do it. If it's at an unbeliever's home and they're offering it to an idol, you cannot do it. It's not a debatable thing on that point at all. It's an issue of right and wrong. It is wrong to eat it in the temple. It is wrong to eat it at a feast in a person's house offered to an idol. It's fine to eat it if you buy it from the meat market, because the earth is Lord's. And it's fine to sit down to dinner and not ask a question about it. I don't have to do a background check on my steak. Hey, can you tell me where this has been and what's going on with it? He says, don't ask questions for conscience, see? So wrong, right, right, wrong. It's not an issue of debatable, it's right or wrong. And if you encourage somebody to do the wrong thing, then you are gonna cause spiritual harm to them. Right, so it's different in that regard. And what we have to recognize is the importance that Paul is making on being careful about the consciences of other people so that you don't ruin them or destroy them, which is a word that Paul uses regularly about eternal destruction. He's not just talking about like, well, yeah, they might, you know, trip into a little sin. Now, if someone's encouraged to pursue idolatry, they're being encouraged to turn away from the Lord. And this person who's professed faith in Christ might be shipwrecked by your carelessness, because the ultimate state of their soul is beyond your ability to see. I just spent all last year on Sunday evenings talking about this. We walk among those who have professed faith in Christ. As a congregation, to be welcomed into the congregation as a member, you have to profess your faith in Christ. But we have no ability to scan you to see if you have had the new birth or if the Spirit of God dwells in you. All we can do is observe the fruit in your life and hear the testimony of your limbs. So at any given time among the congregation of God's people, it is possible that there are people who have professed faith in Christ who haven't fully actually trusted in Christ. Right? That's why, I mean, it used to be the way you talk about it is professors, right? But not people who teach, but people who are professing faith in Christ. And so Paul's concerned that among the congregation at Corinth, there might be some who have professed faith in Christ, but yet are still weak on this issue of idolatry. And it might actually prove, if I could put it this way, to be a kind of eternally terminal weakness. Because they're sitting at the table of demons. Therefore, they're giving demons access to their lives. and they are taken in the snare of the devil to do his will. And so you and I have to think about what kind of catastrophic consequences might be had by our raw use of our liberty and knowledge. Because I'm thinking only of what I want to do at that point. I can keep all my connections by going to this feast, and I can keep all my connections by going to this temple, because the idol's nothing, food's nothing. And I march in there thinking, this is a display of my strength. I am spiritually strong enough to go, that's just a piece of wood. That's just a steak. It means nothing religiously. So I'm gonna eat this thing. And I think I am good, right? Knowledge puffs up. But in my doing it, I send a message of influence to somebody who's struggling at those points and actually starting to think that they could do both, right? They can worship the idol they used to worship and they can worship God. And in so doing, I turn them away from Christ, and I actually make them subject to potential destruction. Look at the end of verse 11, because this is a part, and when we come to seeing what's going on here, why this love for others should be important to us. For through your knowledge, he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. I think the point that Paul's making here is if Christ loved this person enough to die for him or her, how can you make choices that might ruin him or her? And in the context of, I think, Corinthians, and I think if you go back to chapter five, he says, any so-called brother be involved in this immorality. It's, again, fitting in that context I just described. The visible church are those who have professed faith in Christ. And so that's why I don't think he hesitates to call the person a brother. They're a part of the assembly. And I think Paul's view of the atonement of Christ is that it is sufficient for all. And so he doesn't flinch by thinking this lost person Christ died for, right? So I don't think it's a problem in any way that way. What he is trying to get us to see is if Christ would love these people so much that he would die for them, if I put it in a sort of base level way, how can you love a stake so much you'll ruin them? How can you love your pocketbook so much you'll ruin? How can you love your social standing so much that you'll ruin them? Why would you put your temporal pleasure and comfort and acceptance ahead of their soul? That's demonstrating that you have missed the point of knowledge because it hasn't produced love in you. And when he says this, for whose sake Christ died, remember the overarching theme of 8 to 10 is that the gospel is what controls our responses and all these things, and that's what Paul's doing. Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, at the very center of the gospel, right? That the sinless Son of God gave himself as a sacrifice for sinners. Christ died for this person, right? And that presupposes that they had a debt to sin that they could not pay, And in fact, that there was a kind of depravity in them that was that they were a sinner, unable to pay off that debt or achieve that atonement, that this was something that God had to do for them. And he did it through his son. that Jesus became human so that he might, in fact, live a sinless life, but also be able to sacrifice that life to die for them so that they could be rescued from death. He came so that He might be an atonement, a propitiation for our sins, so that we might live. If you've ever been born again, that's what you confess, that's what you hold to. You believe at the very depths of your soul that that is the ultimate game changer. because you were a sinner who could not save yourself, but Christ loved you enough to die for you. He died in your place to rescue you from your sin and its eternal consequences. That's like, that's it. And yet at times, apparently the Corinthians could live like that's not that big a deal. Having a meal in the temple is a little bit bigger than that. fitting into the culture around them is a little more important than that. So there's the glaring contradiction. If you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, and he is so because he obeyed his father even to the point of death on the cross, and God raised him from the dead and exalted him to his right hand and gave him a name that everyone will confess, he is Lord. If you believe that, then that has to translate into a heart that so appreciates that, that it wants to see that advanced never hurt. What I do should serve that, not stand in the way of that. And if you're here this morning and you've never come to recognize that you're a sinner, you have sinned against God in ways that have cost the wages of death. Right? The soul that sins shall die. The scriptures are clear. The wages of sin is death. If you've not recognized that you have sinned against God in such a way that he righteously can condemn you, but has mercifully sent his son to rescue you. He set forth Christ as the atonement for sin. And you can trust in him today. God has promised that if you will call on the name of the Lord, you will be saved. That Jesus can provide for you what no religious effort can provide, no rituals can provide, no priest can give you, no church can give you, no keeping of God's law can give you. He can give you the forgiveness of your sins. He can give you a new heart, a new life. You can be the child of God, welcomed into his family, because Christ died for you. I hope you trust him this morning, and I hope those of us that have, have been completely rewired by that, so that our approach to life is not about us, but it's about the gospel. And that would show forth in love for others. Then look at verses 12 and 13. It shows out in love for Christ, because look at what verse 12 says. And so by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. You know how you honor Jesus? You love his body. I mean, we know this, but we need to really pull it deep into our heart. I mean, Jesus said to Saul, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me when Saul was persecuting Christians? And here's the same person, Paul, saying, do you realize that when you're sinning against these brothers, these brothers and sisters, you're actually sinning against Christ? Right, so it's not just about the damage it could do to them, it's actually also about the disregard it shows to Jesus. Right, Christ died for me too, and I ought to live for him. And if I really wanna love and honor him, then I will love and honor his church. his body. I will be careful because I don't want to have a contrast between the sacrifice of Christ and the selfishness of my heart. I want my heart to be lined up with his and their selfishness wasn't just against those they hurt, it was also against Christ. So it needs to be stopped. That's what Paul's getting at. And look at verse 13. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so I will not cause my brother to stumble." So again, think stumble here is to cause them to fall away from Christ, to be ruined, have their conscience strengthened to participate in idolatry. And so our love for Christ means we will put him ahead of our personal desires. And Paul's, he's clearly speaking in hyperbolic terms, but it's expressing his priority system, right? If food creates stumbling in other people, then food's gone, right? Meat's gone. It's clearly meat in context of this issue. So if you go temple, marketplace, meal, And then meal offered to a God, two of those are out. I think he's saying here, if it causes people to stumble, then it's out across the board for me. I won't eat it at all because the good of a person's soul and my love for Christ and what Christ wants to accomplish is more important than food. I won't surrender them. And so he wants to make certain that he has confessed Christ as first place, which is gonna set the, probably a bad way to say it in the food offer, but it's gonna set the table for chapter nine, right? And he's gonna talk about this issue more, but the primary focus he wants to see is that Christ, love for Christ, will show up in love for Christ's body. and we're not using our knowledge properly if we disregard those things. So Christ's love for sinners should capture our hearts. If you're here and you don't know Christ, I pray it captures your heart. Nobody, nobody has ever loved you like Christ loves you. He took upon himself the eternal wrath of God against your sin. He became sin so that you might be made the righteousness of God in him. No one has loved you like that. And once you recognize that, then your heart should be aligned with his love for sinners so that we would not do anything that would damage or destroy the soul of those for whom Christ died. You know, we live in a world that treasures personal freedom above everything else. I mean, I hope we recognize how we have been marinated in that all of our lives, that the most important value in this world is me being able to be me and do what I want to do. It has turned the vice of selfishness into the virtue of self-expression, of self-advancement, right? We live in a world that is so full of self, I think at times it's hard for us to see how much that is factored into us. I mean, we ought to regularly probably ask ourselves, at what point and what places in my life am I sacrificing anything for Christ and his people? I mean, when I actually tell myself no to something that I want to do because it would be better for other people. Where am I restricting my freedom for the sake of the gospel? Does it show up at all? Or is the first note out of our mouths tend to be the one that's in our culture? Well, tell me why I can't. Tell me what's wrong with that. Prove it to me. Because the first thing we start with is I can do all things through Christ. Right, I can do whatever I want to do. Not, I have been bought with a price. My life is not my own. It's to be lived for Christ, for the events of the gospel, for the good of his people, the building up of the church. And I think a part of what we need to see in this chapter is the deceptiveness of sin. Think about what's going on in the life of those that have knowledge. Right? They have found a sophisticated way to get what they want. I mean, they want to eat the meat offered in the temples. And there's lots of personal advantages to that, I've said. I mean, they retain all kinds of social ties, economic ties, familial ties. They avoid just sort of being the outcasts who all their former acquaintances look at them and say, why are you such a weirdo? Why can't you just go along? Why do you have to make everything such a big deal? I mean, why can't you, the whole family's gonna be taking the mass at the wedding, why can't you? You know it's just juice, it's just the bread. You know it's not anything big. Why do you do that? And we could multiply all kinds of things that we might be inclined to go, well, so, okay. Like in my heart, I know that this is actually nothing. Right, I think it's okay. I can, you know, I'm not really, like I'm really not bowing down inside. Right? And what we have an incredible capacity to rationalize away the wrongness of things in order to get what we want. Right? We can talk ourselves into stuff that is really us just trying to make our heart feel more comfortable with the choice. That's why the Bible says the deceitfulness of sin that can harden the heart. And that's where it seems a lot of people at Corinth were. They could come up with all kinds of good reasons why it was okay to do the thing that was actually not okay and also harmful for other people. Because we have an immense capacity for sinful rationalization. And a text like this should sober us about that. Where are the places in my life where I might be justifying things that are not serving the gospel well? I am right to think this way. I'm right to feel this way because of X, Y, Z. So I can keep doing what I'm doing in spite of what might seem to be dangerous consequences for myself and for others, because I am right about this. And that rightness causes you to be resistant to all other arguments. And I would say in the language of 1 Corinthians 8, there's at least a decent probability that you are puffed up by your knowledge because it's not showing itself in love. And you may be dangerously self-deceived. So let's be careful, all of us. Let's be careful that we don't step back from 1 Corinthians and go, man, those Corinthians were a mess. Amen, let's go. Same problems. The same problems are in our hearts and in our culture. We just need to see how they're dressed and what they look like and be controlled by the fact that Christ died for sinners. and let's seek the good of those for whom Christ died and advance the gospel. Let's pray. Father, please help us to have sensitive hearts about your truth and be aware of those places where we might be compromising the full testimony of your truth by grabbing one part of it to use it to our advantage. And Lord, help us to be fundamentally altered by our understanding of the gospel and the desire in our hearts to glorify Christ who died for us and to see others grow in Christ and see others come to Christ. May we be controlled by that in our choices so that our thinking and affections are lined up with a kind of life that is guided by the truths that we've seen this morning. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.