If you would please open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 8. 1 Corinthians chapter 8, our text this morning that we'll be focusing on starts in chapter 4 and goes to the end of the chapter. But I would like to start reading in verse 1, as we looked at last week, but it sets the stage for what Paul is going to do this week. So let's read all of chapter 8 if you would follow along. Paul writes now concerning food offered to idols. We know that all of us possess knowledge and this knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something he does not yet know is he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. Therefore, after the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence. and that there is no God but one. For although there may be so-called gods in heavens or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former associations with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol and their conscience being weak is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat foods offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed. The brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sin against your brother and wounding their conscience when it is weak. You sin against Christ. Therefore, If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble. Let us pray. Father, we come today to this passage in your Word to hear from you. And Father, while we in our current place in this world, here in Houston, don't struggle with food offered to wood, We're offered to stone made idols. We ask that you would help us to understand what you mean here through the Apostle Paul. We ask that you would change our hearts and that we would apply this idea of loving one another over and above our knowledge and that we would work to seek you. We would work to love those who you have loved and have poured the work of Christ onto you. Father, we ask that you would change us. Please send the Spirit to work among us today. Soften our hearts and mold us and rebuke us where we need it. Encourage us where we need it and change us where we need it. Let not our pride be too much to be changed. And Father, we pray all these things in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. You may be seated. Last week, for those of you who were here, started looking at chapter eight, which starts a new topic, a new focus that Paul is addressing to this in this letter to Corinth. And he starts answering a question they have written to him about regarding their supposed freedom to eat food offered to idols. And we started to look at Paul's response last week, and he's not it's not in the way that you and I would have started. Most likely, You or I would have first given our direct response and told them what was right and wrong. And then if we felt charitable, we would have followed it up with the reasoning behind that. That's not what Paul does in this text. He starts with this principle and this reason and sets it up with this love in one another, and this love being the thing that controls the knowledge that we have, and then he applies it directly to the situation in which they wrote about. And this is probably opposite of how I would have gone about doing it. From last week, we saw that Paul has contrasted this idea of having knowledge alone versus having love for the brother, the brethren, the brothers and sisters in Christ. And we saw that having knowledge alone means that you don't know in the manner in which you should know. In fact, knowledge alone is insufficient. And he contrasts that with one that loves God, meaning that that in turn they will obey the commands of Christ, which means loving other believers and loving those who are not believers. And he said that this person who loves, knowledge or not, I will say, is a person that is known by God. Well, in the rest of this chapter, Paul is now going to apply this principle. He's going to apply this, the things he said in verses 1 through 3, to a particular problem that they are having in the church in Corinth. The idea here is, he says, now concerning food offered to idols, they've apparently written to him, we know there's a previous letter, and in it they've asked him about what to do about eating this food that is offered to idols. We're going to see him explain it further out, what this knowledge is that they claim to have, and then how they use this knowledge. We're going to see the particular knowledge and then how they are using that knowledge specifically to destroy a weaker brother in Christ. And then he says, when you do that, that you're actually not just sinning against that brother, you're sinning against Christ. I want to bring that main point up to you before we start, because as we work through this, I want you to keep that in mind. This is a far bigger thing that Paul is talking about than just food offered to idols. We read today in Isaiah that worshiping idols and putting your trust in them is a foolish thing. They possess nothing. But Paul is saying even bigger than that. Destroying one, pushing one into sin that Christ has redeemed is sinning against Christ Himself. It's sinning against God. He's going to a root of a problem. It is a problem to worship idols. We should not do that. But there's a bigger problem at hand. So with that introduction and background in mind, let's look at what Paul says starting in verse four. What he's going to do is explain and define this knowledge. They've written to him and said that we have this knowledge and he's addressing it. And last week, I purposely didn't bring this text up and I applied it to to all knowledge that we have, because I think it's appropriate to do that. And it specifically has reformed people how we like to use this, this idea that we know a lot about theology as a weapon towards other believers. But he's going to shockingly, I hope to some of you, define what this knowledge is that these people possessed. And picking up in verse four, we read, Therefore, As the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one. For although there may be many so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many idols, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things and through whom we exist. And some of us after last week, we're probably thinking that he's going to put on display some deep, thick theological knowledge that they have. And that's not what he does. That's not what he does at all. He defines this knowledge to the church as a very clear and easy Orthodox Christian belief. That there are, in fact, idols that have no real existence. and that there is one Lord and one God. As you read through this, if I read it from the beginning and I try not to remember what comes, I'm expecting something a lot more profound. And that's not what he says. He gives a very simple and basic amount of knowledge. Let's look at that. I want to examine this knowledge just for a moment. He says an idol has no real existence. They are simply things made out of wood or metal or stone. or some other material that we can work and craft. They are no more than that. They aren't living. They aren't active. In fact, they do not have the ability to move themselves, much less being divine. They are made. They are not actively making. They are completely opposite than the God that we worship. This is not a new idea. This is not a new idea for anyone who knew about this God of Israel. Anyone who had any cursory knowledge of the Old Testament, this is not new. Now granted, many people in Corinth probably didn't have this, but this is a background that Paul had. And he's teaching this to them. And I would like to think that he was referring back to Isaiah, what we already read, and also again in chapter 44, starting in verse 9. Listen to how the idols are described in Isaiah chapter 44, starting in verse 9 through verse 20. All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know that they have been put to shame. Who fashions a god or cast an idol that is profitable for nothing. Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame and craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble. Let them stand forth. They shall be terrified that they shall be put to shame together. The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with a hammer and works it with a strong arm. He becomes hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and he is faint. The carpenter stretches a line. He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it to the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedar. He chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes part of it, warms himself, kindles a fire and bakes bread. He makes a god and worships it. He makes an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half, he worships it. Over the half, he eats meat. He roasted and is satisfied. And he warms himself and says, Aha, I'm warm. I have seen the fire. And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, Deliver me, for you are my God. They know not, nor do they discern. For he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there any knowledge or discernment to say half of it I burned in the fire. I also baked bread on its coals. I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood? He feeds on ashes. A deluded heart has led many astray and he cannot deliver himself or say, is there not a lie in my right hand? Isaiah lines out very clearly the folly, the folly of worshiping a carved idol. They have no real substance. They're made out of things that are constructed by men, out of things they have to go and find. These men don't even grow the trees themselves. They go and find them. And half of it they make into an idol and say, you are my God. And the very substance that they worship, they burn. and they eat off of it and they bake bread. Paul is saying with this same idea, we know, we know that these idols have no substance. And secondly, he points out that there is one God and one Lord. He says, we know that many people say there are many gods and many lords that they worship. But as believers in the Lord Jesus, as Christians, We acknowledge that there is one God for whom we exist, and there's one Lord through whom we exist. This is the Lord Jesus. And so he's setting these ideas opposed to each other. I think he's saying, I'm affirming your knowledge here. You have this right knowledge that idols do not have substance, and that there is one God and one Lord, the Jesus Christ that we worship, who has come, dying on the cross for us and has given us all that he has. You have that right. You have this knowledge correct. And I hope that you get this right, too. This is very basic Orthodox Christian beliefs, and I hope that you get that right. What I find very interesting here is Paul says that even these basic Christian Orthodox beliefs can puff you up. They can puff you up. You don't have to be, as the example I used last week over here, Mr. Bookworm, who is learned in every possible category. You don't have to be him to be puffed up. You can be Mr. Simple Faith, too, that we talked about, who really has no formal theological training and doesn't understand all those things. You can fall into one of those two camps or be anywhere in between, and you can still be puffed up with your knowledge. Let me tell you that there were some in Corinth that came out of this idolatry and they might have been able to affirm this orthodox truth with their words, but they had a very difficult time, it seems, applying it to their life. It was really hard for them. They had been redeemed from the Lord Jesus. They knew this to be true, but they had a lifetime behind them of idol worship. They had this emotional connection, this idea that these other gods, while they say that there's one God, they have in the back of their mind that these things that they've done for years, and they nag on them. And they know that there was something to them worshiping these idols emotionally for them maybe. And they have a drawback to comfort. Maybe they've been alienated from their families. And they had this connection still to this idol worship. It is so ingrained to them that it has taken a long time for this knowledge that there's one Lord and God to fully sink in. They're still being moved along in this sanctification process. We're going to see Paul say that there are these people like this that we must be gentle with. There are people who know the gospel to be true. There are people who know the gospel to be true and that I believe are fully believers. These are fully brothers that we see Paul talking about here. But they have a really hard time applying the truth of the gospel to their life. As we see, we need to be gentle, loving and caring for these people. These people that we perceive as weak in areas where we think there should not be weakness. You see, for some of us, It's easy to define people as weak because they don't have the theological understanding that we have, or maybe even the understanding of a full grasp of the implications of full Orthodox Christianity. And they're new in the faith, possibly, or maybe they've been a Christian for a long time and they haven't had very good discipleship. And we hear the things that come out of their mouth. And oftentimes our first response is heretic. Heretic. They should know better. I think we need to be slow to say that, and we need to call Orthodox Christian beliefs what they are, and we need to call people to hold to that. But when we have weak brothers who struggle to understand these things, we need not turn them out. We need to take them in, love on them, disciple them, and help them see the truths of the Bible. Let me ask you. Are you patient with people who you perceive no less than you? Even the simple Orthodox truths that there is one God and one Lord that we serve, that really struggle with these things. I'm not talking about the learning man who has made his agenda through his Ph.D. to destroy Orthodox Christian faith while be called a Christian. I'm not talking about those people necessarily, but folks who really are believers and they are struggling to learn. Do you have patience with these people in your life? Now look around right now, and you may be thinking, I don't see those people in my life. I see lots of children in this room, and I'd be willing to bet that those people are in your life right now. Either they are your children or your grandchildren, or they're in your Sunday school class, they're your nieces and nephews, or they're the ones that sit in front of you every week. Maybe it's a friend or a family member who is a Christian, just doesn't always get it. Are you patient with them or are you conceited and puffed up with this knowledge that you have? I think it's really important that we examine ourselves before we move on and we look at ourselves and see, are we these people? Are we like the Corinthians where even simple, basic Christian knowledge has got us built up and puffed up? Because we're going to see that it can be used to sin. So we've seen in this chapter so far that Paul is lined out that knowledge without love is dangerous and it puffs us up. And we've seen that this knowledge is not just the reformed tradition or deep theological understandings, but it's even simple things like there is one Lord and one God. And he goes on now, he's going to say, if we're not careful, we can use this knowledge and this puffed upness that we have to sin. Continuing in verse 7, Paul writes, however, not all possess this knowledge. And let's stop right there. He's saying not all among you, not all in your congregation possess this knowledge. They don't really fully understand it and have a grasp on it. He continues, but some through former associations with idols eat food is really offered to an idol and their conscience being weak is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse if we do not eat it and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block for the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge, eating in an idol simple. Will he not be encouraged if his conscience is weak to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge, this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died, thus sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak. You sin against Christ. Look at what Paul says about some of these people in Corinth. He calls them brothers. And he says, some of these people, they do not fully understand this idea of one God and one Lord. They come out of a background. They are indeed saved, but they come out of a background where they have not been sanctified. They have not been discipled to the point where they fully understand this. In their mind, there are multiple gods. There always has been. And they struggle to understand these things. He says you need to be careful with these people and that your freedom of eating food in the temple or eating food that has been sacrificed to the temple does not encourage them to fall back in to sin. Does not encourage these maybe weak or I would say young or possibly fledgling Christians. You would not damage them and push them back into sin. You see, for them, these people, eating food offered to an idol, even though Paul says, we know that eating food does not commend you to God, in their mind, eating this food is actually an act of worship. And when they see you do this, they are encouraged to participate in this worship of an idol. And this is what happens with your perceived freedom to eat in the temples. this food that you know has no value. It's not going to commend you to God or not. But when others who don't know this, who don't understand this idea of only one God, when they see you, they are encouraged to worship idols. They are encouraged to sin. Here's an outline. I want to give you just a look at how it escalates. Paul's argument here very quickly, how it escalates up. Number one, if weak people see you doing this, they will be encouraged. and their weakness to actually go and worship the idol. And Paul says, although this food has no effect on you, this food doesn't commend you to God. It doesn't matter if you eat this food or not. You could eat any other food and you're still going to be alive. This, what you're doing has no bearing on your life. But then he says, but when others see you do this, they are destroyed. Your actions don't have an effect on you, but they have an effect on a weaker brother. And it's not just that they're offended. Look at the wording there. This often time is used in Christian circles so that we will not offend each other. Oh, you shouldn't drink alcohol because so and so might be offended. That is not the point here. Paul is saying you don't do these things because you are encouraging someone to fall into sin. And when you do that, they were being destroyed. Destroyed. Not offended. Your actions are pushing someone into sin. You are pushing them away from the gospel, away from the cross of Christ, and you are pushing them into idol worship, which is the exact opposite of what we are supposed to do in the church. We are to proclaim the gospel, bring people in, and we should be faithfully helping everyone understand the scriptures, understand who God is, to raise them up, to keep them from falling into sin. And Paul says what you're actually doing is no damage to you, but it is destroying them. And oftentimes we read over this and we don't even see, we read through this very quickly and we go, yeah, we shouldn't offend our brother. No, we shouldn't destroy our brother. This is not a loving act by a Christian. Paul is saying, you are doing a very unloving thing by destroying this man that Christ has died for. Essentially working against Christ. And lastly, the third in this escalation, so we see that it won't hurt you, but it destroys your brother. Thus, in verse 12, sinning against your brother and wounding their conscience when he is weak. And I will say to you, as I read through this this week, the idea of it is wounding him when he is weak is like kicking someone when they're down. That's the idea here. Think of someone who is sick or ill or unable to move and they're on the ground and weak and you walk up and take a cheap shot in the ribs. as hard as you possibly can. This is the idea that you wound them, you injure them, you destroy them when they are down, when their conscience is weak. And here it is. Here's the main point here. Here's where this escalation is going. When you do this, you sin against Christ. You sin against Christ. You don't just sin against yourself. You don't just sin against your brother. When you're sister in Christ, you sin against Christ himself. We are not to do this, brothers and sisters. I love how Paul handles this. He takes this question about what should we do about eating food? Should we not do it or do it? Or maybe can we do it in this way and not that way? And they're looking for some sort of maybe outline on how they are to handle this. Or maybe Paul writing to the weaker ones and saying, be strong, man up, don't don't do this silly thing or whatever other vernacular that I hear people use around here in our contemporary. But that's not what he does. He tells the one with knowledge, love your brother. Because when you don't and you push them into sin, you are sinning against Christ. He turns it right to the cross. Some of us today need to hear this. And then in our actions and the things that we do, we don't even think about that we could be possibly pushing someone away from the cross. Over and over in 1 Corinthians, we have seen that we should be looking at the world through a lens of the gospel, so to speak. We are to be looking at everything that we do, all that we do, our work, our homes, our teaching, our private life, everything, our driving in the car should be done through the lens of the gospel. And Paul is pushing us there again today. We are changed people. Christ has died for us and he has given all that he is to us. We are not to be unloving people because of this. We should be very mindful of all those around us. The more I read the New Testament, the more I'm overwhelmed with how much Scripture speaks to us not being self-centered and to live a life of sacrifice and to live a life that is loving of others. I want some of you in here To encourage you, you may be the weak one. You may be the weak one. And you may be the one that you go, Dirk, I struggle sometimes with understanding these things that I hear people talk about in the Christian life. And I don't want to admit to anyone that it's not the hard things. It's the easy things. I struggle with this because of my background or where I've come from or or just my general disposition. I really struggle with these these Christian beliefs and applying them. Take heart. Be encouraged that Christ has died for you, just as he has died for these weak brothers in Corinth. And that if you trust in him. You will probably struggle. We all struggle. But if you trust in Him, you will be saved. So Paul passes on his main point here. We have this resolution. I love this story because, or this passage, because it reads almost like a story would, a narrative would. You get this build up, this escalation of this, this thing you do doesn't hurt you, but it destroys others. When you destroy others, you sin against Christ. And now we come to this resolution. The so what, if you will, the application that Paul is putting forth to them. And he says this in verse 13. Therefore, because of all these things, therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble. Paul's focus is not on personal freedom as the determining factor of our conduct, but as the love towards other people. And I will say not just any love, but love that we have because of Christ's work and love that is informed by the gospel. Not some simple affectionate feeling that we have for someone, but real love because we are changed people. Really caring for them and wanting what's best for them and their faith and gently and loving lovingly walking along beside them. Paul says, and I think the context here seems to be speaking in hyperbole. If I'm in this situation, I love someone so much that I will forego all meat. Not just stop eating this meat that I have the freedom to eat in the temple, but I will forego all meat. I will go above and beyond. I will do whatever it takes to keep from damaging someone that Christ has redeemed. Is this your attitude in the Christian life? Is this the way that you see your actions? Are you willing to give up everything and go above and beyond, not because it's required of you on the cross or by the cross in the work of Christ in your life, but because you love the redeemed, that you love Christ and His people, that you are willing to do whatever it takes to keep someone from falling back into sin. Most of us in Kingwood don't have to struggle with people going to a temple and offering meat and eating that meat. But the principle still applies to us today. And there are a lot of ways that we can apply this. And there is no possible way that I could touch on each and every one of these principles and touch on them. But I do want us to look at a few general aspects of life where this principle fits in. And as we go through that, be thinking about your own life and evaluating and looking for places where your actions could possibly be pushing someone away from the faith, back into sin. I was reading this week about this passage to see what other people had to say. One person said this and it stuck out to me. Presuming to possess knowledge gives one a false sense of security and superiority. And I thought that was great. Many of us in our knowledge get this false sense of security that everything is great. And that sometimes we're superior to other people. And sometimes we don't say that out loud, but the way that we act and the way that we live with our families and other people is exactly that. We live with this idea that we're superior and we're secure in all things. But I will say to you, if you aren't loving in the way that you are acting and you aren't conscious of that, you are setting yourself up for failure with this false sense of security and superiority. You see, the abuse of others, even if we don't know it's abuse, the abuse of others indicates a total misunderstanding of the nature of Christian ethics. And I don't say just the Christian life in general. It doesn't spring from knowledge, it just springs from love. Next, I think we must always be aware that there are areas of freedom that we have that are always going to be a struggle for other people. And we need to be aware of our actions in relation to other people. Not that we keep from offending them, but that we keep from destroying them. We need to be on the watch. We need to be looking out for our brethren, that we are not causing a fellow believer to be harmed, to be pushed back into sin, or be pushed into a sin that they've not struggled with before. Here are some ways that I think are fairly harmless that you may not have thought about that might push someone into that. For some of us, we participate in that harmless fantasy football league or college pick'em league. And some of it has money involved, and we don't realize that that brother in our office or that family member that we play with in a former lifestyle really struggled with gambling. And through peer pressure, maybe they participate in this league and it pushes them back into that. We were unaware, unintentional, because we weren't looking out for love. Or maybe the one that's sitting next to you right now came out of a life that involved drugs and alcohol or great partying or sinning or other things and a formal, a former lifestyle that they they don't want to have any part of. And it can't be separated in their mind from a casual drink. And you, obliviously unaware, not meaning to cause harm in your freedom, start drinking a casual drink around them, and you tempt your brother to fall back into that. If they were to fall back into that lifestyle and not be able to pull out, what you would have done in your freedom is to push them away from Christ. Maybe, in a former life, there's a brother and sister that you No, there wasn't a gang. It was going down a really terrible path before the Lord saved them. And you not caring or knowing about them and being a good American, ask them if they want to go to the gun range to go shooting. But what you don't understand is they can't separate a former life that involves shooting at other people away from shooting at a target. And you try, you unwillingly or unaware, push them towards that. Or maybe you do know that and you continue to ask them anyway, because you want them to understand this freedom and what you're actually doing is pushing them back into a damaging place where they came out of. Or maybe that friend of yours that's a believer is a former soldier. And you invite them to your New Year's or 4th of July party, and those fireworks bring back really awful memories. And you know that, but yet you invite them and you still insist on popping them, pushing them back into a very difficult place in their life. I hadn't thought about that until recently. I remember living in an apartment and having a problem with the office. I was in there trying to get it worked out, and my neighbor upstairs also was having a similar problem. And he was getting really upset. And we had a break and we were talking about it. He goes, I'm on leave from Iraq and I'm having a really difficult time not wanting just to throw someone out that window because where I am normally is very violent. I'm really struggling to be back here in this country. Maybe we need to be careful that we have brothers and sisters that have situations like that that we've never considered. This list cannot be exhausted because of our diversity and the time that we live in. Maybe, though, we need to spend time getting to know our brothers and sisters better so that we won't, in our freedom and our knowledge, push them back towards sin. Let me ask you, are you willing, like Paul, to give up something that might not offend, but destroy a weaker brother or sister. It would push them back out of a life of faith into an act of sin and rebellion that they have been saved out of. Even if that means laying aside your American rights for the good of your brother. Are you willing to lay down your guns? Are you willing to lay down your alcohol? Are you willing to lay down your food? Are you willing to lay down your sports? Are you willing to lay down everything that you own and give it all up for the sake of your brother? This is what Paul is saying. If it causes my brother to stumble and be destroyed, I will never eat meat again. Are you willing to say, I will give up everything that I have if it means that a brother will not be destroyed? is our calling as Christians to love Christ because He has saved us and therefore love those He has saved in the same way, not wanting them to be destroyed. I'll close with this. We need to seek through prayer and petition to the Lord and ask that He would put our entire lives under the subjection of Christ and that we would love other people in the way that he has loved us. And to follow the example of Paul, that we would be willing to lay down all of our life and everything that we have, because we love the cross and those who have been saved by the cross more than we love anything else. Let us pray. Oh, Father, we thank you for your goodness to us. And we ask that you would change our minds. That you would change the way that we think about this world. And that you would make us willing to give up everything in this world to keep a brother from stumbling. And Father, as hard as it is for us to pray this, we ask that you would put those people in our lives. That you would give us the opportunity to live the gospel out, to put to pavement, to work out all of Christ's work. And Father, we are so thankful that you not only not only do this work for us, you give us the strength to do what you called us to. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.