Very good. Take your Bibles, please. And we'll go to the book of 1 Corinthians again this morning. 1 Corinthians in chapter 10. I'll read the passage through for you in ESV. And I'm reading from chapter 10 in verse 1, and we'll read down to verse 22. And he says, for I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it's written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in one single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. And God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar. What do I imply then that food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offered to idols, sorry, what pagan sacrifice they offered to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? And the theme that's coming out of that last section, we're gonna focus on verses 14 through 22 there is the idea of jealousy. What is jealousy? Jealousy is to be intolerant of rivalry of somebody else. So I don't like the fact that somebody has the affections and love that I think should be for me. And the Bible gives a couple of illustrations in the Old Testament on what jealousy is and what it looks like. And for the jealousy of men, if you go back to the book of Genesis chapter 37, you're going to find there there's 12 brothers in this family. And one of them seems to have the favor of his father over all the rest of the brothers. And the brothers develop a feeling and a sense of jealousy. The Bible says this in Genesis 37. But when his brothers saw that their father, that's Isaac, loved him, sorry, Jacob, loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, hear this dream that I have dreamed. Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf. And his brothers said to him, are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him. even more for his dreams and his words. And the end of the passage says this, and his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. Jealousy is to feel that love, affection, and consideration that are rightfully ours is being given to somebody else. We all know what it's like to feel jealousy towards someone. But what about when we are the cause of someone else's jealousy? Our actions, our unfaithfulness, our disloyalty causes another one to be jealous, even potentially causes God to be jealous. That's what this passage is talking about. In Exodus 32, we have an exact example of that, where God, who is a jealous God, feels a jealousy against His people. It says this, The story, as you probably know, in Exodus 32, is Moses has gone back up onto the mountain to get the Ten Commandments and all the description for making the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant and all that stuff, and he's gone for 40 days. And the Bible says, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, We do not know what has become of him. And so Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me. So all the people took the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. And here's the part I wanted to catch up with. And the Lord said to Moses, Go down, for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them, that I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. That was the first commandment of God. Remember, He said to have no other gods before Him. God is saying, listen, I'm angry. You've aroused my anger in the way that you behave. You've provoked me to jealousy. And God is a jealous God who is jealous for the affections, the love, and the devotion of His people. The passage in 1 Corinthians 10, 14 through 22, it describes and warns the New Testament believer against the terrible danger of provoking the Lord to jealousy. What we want to do this morning is we want to see two things. One, for the people of Corinth, we want to see how They were called to not provoke the Lord to jealousy by sharing and fellowshipping in the Lord's table and demon's table. And we're going to apply it to ourselves. For Cayce, we must not provoke the Lord to jealousy by sharing the affection, the worship, and love that is the Lord's with something or someone else. And so the title of the message is simply, do not provoke the Lord to jealousy. Well, what I want to do is I want to work my way through the text. I want to explain it verse by verse, kind of unpack it all for you. And then we're going to draw some observations and illustrations and some applications at the very end. Okay. So beginning of verse 14, he says this, it's a conclusion. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. He's beginning to conclude everything he's been saying from 8 in verse 1, and he's going to finish it in 11 in verse 1. So his conclusion, the therefore, in Greek, it can look both ways. You can look therefore behind to see what it's therefore. We hope the old joke goes. Or it also can mean look ahead and see why he's saying. So this little section here is setting up the ending as well as finishing off what he's been saying for the last couple chapters. Everything being done, he's going to say a couple of sections next, that everything should be done to the glory of God. He's going to talk about headships and head covering, and he's also going to discuss the Lord's Supper. And this is kind of all setting it up. He refers to them here as his beloved, using a term of great endearment. Now back in 4, chapter 4, verses 8 to 14, he used very strong sarcasm when he spoke to the people of Corinth. He called them kings, et cetera, in order to awaken them and admonish them, but then concluded with the very same term of endearment, my beloved children. In 15 and verse 58, he'll say the same thing again. He'll call them his beloved brothers, And he'll urge them and call them to be steadfast, unmoved, always abounding in the work of the Lord. So he's calling them my beloved brothers. He's not being sarcastic. He's not being nasty. He's literally saying, listen, you're the ones I love. And I'm sharing this with you because I love you and I don't want to see you go down these bad roads. Notice also in verse 14, he says to them to flee from idolatry. It's a very strong command. It's a present active imperative. And what the idea behind it is to not just flee once, run away, and that's it. It's to make it a habitual thing. So he's saying, go on, keep on fleeing from idolatry. Never let yourself get caught up in it. Make it your habit throughout all your lives to flee away from idolatry. You say, well, what is idolatry? And we've talked a bit about it before in Exodus 20 and verse 3. I sort of referred to before, he says, you shall have no other gods before or in the place of me. Little way to read it. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that's in heaven above or the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God. And he's saying, I'm not going to tolerate anything in my place, literally before my face. And idolatry literally means, to replace God with anything, with something else in our love, our worship, or our affection. The love that should and must be reserved for God is not to be given to another, lest we provoke him to jealousy. So he's commanded them, listen Corinth, you've got to flee away from idolatry and make it a habit to flee away. Notice next in verse 15, he addresses them as sensible. It's the same word as wise or prudent. Unlike 4 verses 8 to 14, he's not using sarcasm at all. He's literally appealing to them genuinely as wise and sensible and prudent people. His imperative command is, judge yourselves, the things I'm saying. So he's literally, it's a very emphatic thing. He's saying, you make up your own mind. You decide, listen to what I'm saying and decide for yourself what it means and what to do with it. And what he's going to do in the past, he's going to use a whole bunch of rhetorical questions that demand a certain answer. And he's driving home a point to them. So he makes one basic point in the whole passage. His point is simply this. When we share in the offerings that are made to God or a deity, we are sharing or fellowshipping with both God and the other worshipers that share in the offering. And what it does is, he uses a series, like I said, of rhetorical questions and statements to drive home to the Corinthians that simple point. They're in danger of provoking the Lord to jealousy. And in verse 16, he asks the question, To make the point, we are in fact worshiping the Lord. Look what he says in verse 16. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ, the bread that we break? Is it not a participation in the body of Christ? He's literally making the point to them, we are fellowshipping in his body, and we are fellowshiping in his blood. The word there for participate, or yeah, participation, It's koinonia. That's the root word. It's the same idea we get our idea of fellowship from. It's often translated as fellowship. Now last week we were talking about the biblical church and the practice of fellowship and the fact that properly understood, fellowship is far more than just getting together to be in one another's lives. Biblical fellowship is sharing or better participating in something or someone that we have in common. And we said last week, all of us come from different backgrounds and different, some from South Africa, some from Canada, some from Australia, some from, India wherever right we're all from different backgrounds and we all have different jobs and educations and trades and and Professions and so on and yet when we get together in this place here We get together around one common thing that we have and that is the Lord Jesus He is what we have in common. What Paul is saying is listen Corinthians judge for yourself the cup of blessing we bless is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is it not a sharing in the body of Christ the bread that we break? But when Paul speaks of sharing in the body and blood of the Lord, we need to be careful that we understand what he is saying, okay? And it's understanding is linked to John 6. If you want, take your Bibles, go back to John chapter 6 for a second, and we're going to read just a couple of verses there, 51 and 53. In those verses, Jesus makes a very difficult statement. A lot of people tripped over what did he mean by this. In fact, his listeners at the time didn't quite grasp what he was saying. And it says this, John 6 verse 51, Jesus said, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Then the Jews dispute among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. What did Jesus mean? Obviously, he's not promoting any form of cannibalism, although one of the charges often brought against the early church was that of cannibalism, because the whole idea of the Lord's Supper and sharing in the body and blood of the Lord, they didn't grasp what it meant, so the Roman authorities often accused and charged the Christians with cannibalism. But verse 40, just above, gives a parallel idea. Everyone who looks to Jesus and believes in him will have eternal life and will be raised up again the last day. What Jesus is saying is, unless you look to me as the only hope you have and receive in me the total commitment, sorry, receive me in total commitment to me, you will have no life. When he speaks of eating and drinking, he means unless you take me wholly for yourself, unless I become to you your very life and your sustaining, unless you receive me in a manner of total commitment by faith, you will have no life in you. Now, some traditions in Christianity, even today, They see the sharing in the bread and juice are one as sharing in the body and blood of the Lord to the extent they even use a spoken blessing when they serve the almonds. And I was actually in a service and I wasn't prepared for it. Uh, I wasn't, uh, my home church was just visiting somewhere and the fella gave me a little piece of bread and he said, receive the body of Christ for eternal life. And then he gave me the little cup and said, receive the blood of Christ for eternal life. And I kind of, you know, just sort of tripped over. What does he mean by that? Now, they, this particular group, doesn't see the taking of the elements as an act of salvation where you're receiving them and you're actually saved and taken them. They just mean they're sharing in the body and sharing in the blood. But the way he said it, it just jarred in my head because it didn't seem to fit what we understand. But we need to understand the distinction here. We're saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It's absolutely clear. We're saved by trusting God to keep his promises. When we partake of that little communion table over there, the bread and the wine, We are symbolically showing and declaring to everybody that we have trusted in Christ. We're showing that Christ's death was sufficient to save us. We're showing that we are fellowshipping and sharing in Jesus Christ. And we are also fellowshipping with the other believers in this room. That's a beautiful thing. You think about it. The fact that when we get together, we take the one loaf of bread. What we do is we cut it in half because we don't need the whole thing. And we just take the one loaf of bread and we break it apart. And that breaking shows that Jesus' life was given for us. His body was given for us. And then we share of it. And what we're doing is symbolically doing what Jesus talked about. And we're showing, listen, Christ is in me. I believe in Christ. I have taken him from my life and my sustaining. I have taken him from my salvation. He means everything to me. And I'm sharing in Christ. But the beautiful picture is that not only are we sharing in Christ, we're also sharing with one another. That's why Paul. in the next couple of chapters is going to make a strong emphasis on coming and taking the bread and the wine in a manner that's fitting for us to take it as believers. We need to deal with sin before we get here. We need to wash ourselves clean. Go before the Lord, ask Him to show us any sin that needs to be dealt with so we can put it away, confess it, be made right with God. And when we come together, we're sharing together and we're fellowshipping together. That's why it's so key when two people in a church are in dispute or disagreement, that they make those things right, that they strive to put them right rather than to sit and break bread together when they're not in fellowship with one another, but they're showing that they are. It's an inconsistency. So Paul is saying, listen, you are sharing. We are sharing together in Christ and we're sharing with one another. We're all fellowshipping. We're not just getting together for the sake of getting together. We're fellowshipping in Christ. We're fellowshipping to Christ, if you like. So the bread we break is our fellowshiping together in Christ. The cup we give thanks for is a fellowshiping together all together in Christ. Just before I go on, some of you may have heard this, the cup of blessing, he says there, the cup of blessing that we bless. If you're familiar with the Jewish Passover, you might remember that in the Passover, there are four cups. And the last cup is considered the cup of blessing and according to a lot of Messianic Jews would say that's the cup that Jesus took and when he gave thanks and passed it around saying this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, that's the cup he was talking about. So there's a little interesting connection there for the Jewish people to understand that cup of blessing is the one that Jesus used and gave thanks for at the Lord's Supper. To bless simply means to give thanks for it, that's all it means. Notice also in 10.17, the picture of that fellowship is seen in the one bread we all partake of, and that's a tremendous truth. We are one body. And you've got to look around this room and go, look at all the differences in the people in this room. And the beautiful thing is that God has brought us together and we are one body in Christ. And we picture that when we take the little piece of bread. Remember that we're one body together, celebrating and sharing in Jesus Christ. Something else very quickly. The reason why this special feast is reserved for believers only is that without the death of Christ and the blood of Christ being applied to each of us, we don't have that one thing in common. What's the point of an unbeliever remembering the Lord in that bread and wine? It doesn't mean anything to them. They're not a part of Christ. They're not fellowshipping in Christ. They have not been covered by Christ's blood. They haven't taken Christ themselves. And that's why it's so important that we as believers remember the Lord, and for guys with younger kids, If they're going to partake, it's really important they understand what the significance of that is and the importance of the fact that it is for those who believe in Jesus Christ and have come to Him for forgiveness of sin, have been set free from sin, and are living by faith. They're fellowshipping in Christ all through the week, not just on Sunday morning. So Paul is making his one point. First, he used the New Testament church to show that those who fellowship in bread and wine fellowship with God and with each other. Notice next in verse 18, he uses the Old Testament Israel as a people of God to make the same point. Again, he's kind of reinforcing with another illustration. Paul says to them with an imperative, to consider or to see or to give thought or understanding to. It says in verse 18, I'll read it out. Consider the people of Israel are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar. In the Old Testament sacrificial system what would happen is The offerer would bring his offering to the tabernacle, and he would lay his hand upon the head of that offering, and he would confess over the head of that offering his sins that he was looking to be forgiven for. And then the offerer would take a knife, and they would get a bowl ready, and they would cut the throat of the animal, and the priest would catch the blood in a bowl, and he would take it, and he would go up to the altar, and he would just throw it against the side of the altar. So that side of that big, huge, bronze altar, it would have been about two-and-a-half meters by two-and-a-half meters, and about almost two meters off the ground. It was a big thing. And they would have thrown that blood, and it would have been a big splash against the side of the altar. and he would put the altar there, and then they would take and they would burn a memorial portion of that offering in the fire on the altar, and often they would mix salt or incense or grain or oil, would go with it, depending on what kind of sacrifice it was. And then sometimes, not always, depending on the different offerings being offered, sometimes what they would do is the priest and the offerer and often other people who are around there would sit down and take that meal, the meat that was left over, and they would cook it and they would eat it. And what they were doing is a really neat picture. They were showing that there is reconciliation between them and God. You see, in the Bible, when people got together to eat a meal and celebrate time together, to share around a meal, they were showing fellowship. They were showing reconciliation with each other. It's a beautiful thing. Go back to the Old Testament again, you look up in the story where. The elders of Israel go up on the mountaintop with Moses and that the blood of the covenant has all been sprinkled and everything's been taken care of. And the Bible says the elders of Israel and Moses and Aaron and the 70 all got together and they're eating a meal in the presence of God. And the Bible says they ate and they drank and they saw God at a distance. And there was a picture there of the eating of the meal showing reconciliation and fellowship between the offerer, the other worshipers and God himself. Okay. Next in verse 21, Paul kind of switches gears and he takes a break from his rhetorical questions to make some, wait a minute, I jumped ahead. No, verses 19 and 20, sorry, he makes his point again in a slightly different way. He asks a rhetorical question. What do I imply then that food offered to idols is anything or an idol is anything? And Paul has kind of anticipated their objection for good reason. He's just said in 1 Corinthians 8 verse 4 that an idol has no real existence, an idol is nothing. And he goes on to say in 10 and verse 20, no, I mean that what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. We looked at this a couple months ago in 1 Corinthians 8. I made the point then that what Paul is saying in verse Number 20 here is that when the demons impersonate the idols and use the idolatrous practices of the pagans to ensnare and entrap them in the worship of unclean spiritual forces, okay, demons, it's because a worshiper shares in fellowships with the one that the offering is offered to, and that's his point all the way through. And so he's saying, listen, these pagan idolaters, they're going in there and they're taking that meat and they're offering it to a wood or a bronze or metal idol, but impersonating that idol is a demon. And so what they're in effect doing is they're offering meat to demons, not just a chunk of wood or a carved bronze thing or a carved metal thing in front of them. The demons actually impersonate, and the demons use that idol to draw the hearts of men away and keep them ensnared in sin. And Paul is saying, listen, he kind of breaks through in verse number 20 there. He kind of breaks through, and you see the heart of Paul come through, and he's kind of pleading with him, I don't want you to be participants with demons. If you do that, if you join in with those people who are offering at the pagan temples, you are participating in the worship of demons. And then he hits the next verse, number 21, he makes a very emphatic statement, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, you cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons and the force of that word cannot is more than just you can't like well you really shouldn't it's actually hugely important in Greek it's got three weights to it and apparently all three weights of meaning apply in this verse and what Paul is saying is this it's a logical impossibility You cannot do one and the other. They mutually exclude each other. It's just an impossibility. You can't do it. It's a logical thing. It's like saying I can be an Australian and be in Canada at the same time. Well, logically, that's impossible because as big as I am, I can't reach both countries with both feet, and I can't be in both at the same time. It's impossible. That's what Paul's saying. It's logically impossible. He's also saying it's an empirical impossibility, meaning one of the two activities done will destroy the other one. Okay, that's kind of a cool thing. You think about it, what he's saying is, if you go and offer up sacrifices at the table of the pagan idols, worshiping demons in effect, you are destroying what you will do when you go to worship God. And what's really neat, I didn't realize until just reading the passage like 10 minutes ago, God says to Moses, you go down and you deal with this people that you have brought out of Egypt. And all of a sudden, at dawn, you know what God was saying? Before they sinned with the golden calf, you know what God says? I brought you out of Egypt. I redeemed you as on eagles' wings. I picked you up, and I plucked you out, and I brought you to this land. And now when they sin, God says, you go and deal with the ones that you brought out. And what they have done in the plain below the mountain is in worshiping the idol, not the demon, The idol, they have broken fellowship and they can no longer have fellowship with God. And Paul is saying, listen, if you try and offer up to idols and go and worship the Lord at his table, you will destroy the fellowship that you have with God. And that's why he's saying, I don't want you to do it. It's also, an institutional impossibility, but we'll just leave that for now. Brings us to verse 22, which is Paul's warning to them and us. And again, he asks a rhetorical question. Paul loves these rhetorical questions. He's using a string of them to get them to answer and consider and judge for themselves. He wants them and he wants us to come to our own conclusion. And the question is this, shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Attempting to eat at both tables, Attempting to drink from both cups will provoke God to jealousy, and that applies to New Testament Christians today. Now, I can see some of your eyes are switching off a little bit, and you're hearing about all this pagan idolatry, and I don't blame you. You're going, what's that got to do with us, man? We live in 2015. This is Southeast Melbourne. And I'm fairly positive, about 100% positive that nobody in this room is heading off down to a pagan temple in the middle of the week to offer up some meat to an idol and then to share in the meat and then come back here to break bread on Sunday morning. We're not doing that, are we? No, of course not. So the question is, what's it got to do with us, and how does it apply to us? What has all this discussion of idols got to do with us? We don't do those things. But there is in this passage some timeless, incredible principles for us all to learn from and be challenged from. So if you're sleeping up until now, wake up, and this is the part you want to hear. OK, here we go. Timeless principles, there's two of them. The first one is this. God is a jealous God with a holy jealousy for our KC Bible Church, our undivided love, affection, worship, obedience, and trust. Paul's rhetorical question in verse 21 about provoking him to jealousy would be an empty statement if God could not become jealous. And the Bible says, as we saw before, that God is a jealous God. Jealousy in us can be a sinful thing when we come sorry, when we become intolerant of rivalry or someone else's unfaithfulness. We want for ourselves the place of highest esteem in usually a loved one's eyes. So I want to be the hero in Heather's eyes all the time, right? And I get jealous if I feel like I'm not the hero in Heather's eyes. It's a human thing. And it's a sinful thing. And jealousy is a sinful thing in us as humans. But God is a jealous God with a holy jealousy. Okay? He wants the place of highest esteem in our eyes. Why does he want it from us? Why is it so important that God gets the place of highest esteem in his eyes? No one is greater than the Lord our God. No one is more holy than the Lord our God. None is more righteous than God. None is more kind. None is more powerful. None is more gracious. No one but God can satisfy the human heart's needs than God. None can. So for us to say, you know, I want to be the most important person in someone else's life, that's a sinful thing because I'm not the most important person. When God says, I want to be the most important, the highest valued thing in your life, that is absolutely right and true and correct because God is the most important person. God is the person of highest value. God is the one who is holy and righteous and loving and kind. God will not tolerate that another person or thing be given the love and worship that he alone deserves. God had redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt. God has redeemed us. by the blood and the death of Christ and the cross at an infinitely greater cost for an infinitely greater redemption as not only our creator, but also our savior, our father, our God, our friend. In that sense, he deserves and demands our love, our worship, and our affection and our obedience. Israel redeemed from Egypt was commanded not to have other gods before God for the Lord. Their God is a jealous God. And that brings us to the second timeless principle. And that's this. Idolatry is to replace God with anything else. So first principle really important, God is a jealous God. Do not provoke God of jealousy. We're going to come back to that. Second important principle is this, idolatry is to replace God with anything else. Paul is pleading and warning with them not to engage in idolatry, to flee from it, because it's not possible to commit idolatry and still have fellowship with God. God will not be replaced. He will not share you or I with anything or anyone. Idolatry is to rob God of our love, our trust, our obedience, our faith, which glorifies him as God most loving and God most trustworthy. Idolatry is not limited to bowing down to carved images. Idolatry is the inordinate love of people, things, ideas, objects in the place of God. Love of money, love of success, love of a work. Love of our leisure, love of our spouses, and even love of our children can become idols in our lives. It's true. I can actually hear a bit of an objection to some of those. I want to try and answer with some illustrations. And being a guy, I'm going to pick on the men. Men, if we love God and desire to glorify God by loving our wives that he gave us, loving them in the same way that Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that's right and good. I look at my wife and I say, that is God's second highest display of grace and love in my life is Heather. And because I love the Lord, who gave his son to die for me, I love my wife, I strive to love my wife the way that Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. That's a good thing. Man, if we love God and desire to glorify God by working in the jobs he has given us, working in such a way that the resulting testimony of our work life is that we are godly men who love the Lord, that's right and that's good. I have a job, I go to work, I look at that job and say, that job is a gift of God to me. Because I love the Lord and I love His gift to me, I strive to do that job to the best of my ability in such a way that shows that I love the Lord and shows my desire to glorify Him in everything we do. That's what we're going to say in the next chapter, by the way, or the last little bit of this chapter. Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Why? Because it's a response of love to God. But men, if we love our work, our money, our success, our sports, our hobbies, our And you fill in the blank. People of God, if we love and pin our hopes on any created thing more than we love and trust God, then we're making idols out of the things that God has in love given us to be used for his glory. Think about this way. God created every single thing in existence, right? And when man picks up and takes what God created for his glory and makes an idol out of it, he is spitting on the love that God has shown him. If we spend all our time, our effort, our energy to get those things, we've made idols out of them. Now, I can imagine some of you looking up here thinking, thanks a lot for picking on us. It's easy for you. You work at studying and preaching and sermoning and praying and visiting, calling, playing golf, whatever. Let me tell you something. No joke, it is just as easy, no easier, no more difficult, for me to slip into the same kind of idolatry as it is for you. It's absolutely true. Even making an idol out of ministry. Absolutely true, and serving the Lord. It's possible to make serving the Lord and doing ministry an idol. I recently had coffee with a friend of mine, a pastoral friend who leveled a pretty severe warning at me. I took it from the Lord. It really cut a little bit deep. I asked him, how do you spend your time in ministry? How do you allocate the time to what different things? And he looked across at me. He kind of ignored my question. Well, sort of ignored it. He said, look, I can't tell you how to spend your time, but I can tell you how you must prioritize it. I said, okay. He said, Jesus Christ first. Heather second, John O'Cammon Brady third, and the church fourth. You know what he did? He split my devotion to Christ and my working and serving in the church into two different areas. He said, your personal devotion to the Lord, your care and love and management of your home are absolutely critical. He added this, if you don't prioritize your time like this, you will ultimately lose your ministry. because the management of your home, your wife, and your boys is a vital qualification for your ministry as an elder. It's no different if you're a carpenter, a doctor, a prime minister, king of Siam, engineer, doctor, candlestick maker, whatever it is you do. The priorities are exactly the same. Jesus first, Heather second, John O'Cammon Brady, or in your case, your family, and then your ministry and work after that. Paul has warned the Corinthians about fellowshipping with demons and then coming, attempting to fellowship with God and his people. It'll provoke the Lord's jealousy. How many of us, appalling, are the love and affection that God alone deserves into the created things that he has given us? I hear the Lord's warning me. And warning us from this text, do not provoke me to jealousy by giving to other things the first place in your life. This is what Jesus said, or Paul said about Jesus in Colossians one says this, he is the image of the invisible God. the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together, and he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything, everything, he might be preeminent. He might have the highest place of distinction in my life. What place does God have in my life and in your life right now? I want to take some time. I'm going to ask us all just to sit in quiet for a few minutes. Don't worry about the babies. If they make noise, it's cool. If God is speaking to you, don't push him away. I want us all to do business with God and think about what place God has in our lives. Can you look up to your heavenly father and say you are the first place in my life? I want us to come before the Lord and ask him to show us what is that place that he occupies in my life and in your life. I want us to ask God to show us, to show me, to show you what we need to change. And I recognize and I realize after that conversation, there are some things in my life that need to change, some priorities and some practical doings that need to change in order that I might consistently give God the highest place. And it'll be a wrestle because as fast as we put one thing aside, something else will want to take its place. And we will be a wrestle to keep and to constantly place God as absolutely first. I want us to ask the Lord for the enabling power of His Holy Spirit to dig out those idols from our lives, to break them in pieces. Israel, when they went in the land, you know what they told them? Break down and smash the idols, grind them down to powder, and get rid of them. To be rid of them so that they would, so hang on. for us to get rid of those idols in our lives that we might love and serve and trust the Lord fully in our life with undivided affection. So I'm gonna give you some time, I'm gonna pray, and then we'll go to the Lord's table, all right? Loving Father, we come before you again this morning and we give you thanks for the Lord Jesus Christ. And father, we thank you for the tremendous privilege that we have as those who have been redeemed and set free. Those who have been washed clean in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. To come and sit here as one body gathered around the Lord Jesus Christ, fellowshipping in and with him. And Father, we thank you for his body which was given for us that was so brutally and harshly torn. And Father, the blood that was shed, that ran down. And Father, he poured out his lifeblood for us that we might have life. And Father, we recognize that we have fellowship with you and with each other. And Father, we also recognize that we are like the Corinthians to flee from idolatry, to flee from putting things in the place of God. And Father, I recognize in my own life there are so many things that need to be pulled down and pushed aside. that you might have the first place. And Father, I just pray this morning that the Spirit of God would have freedom to provoke all of us to work at our conscience, Lord, to bring to mind the things that we need to change. Father, to highlight to us the errors that we have made and the idols that we have built, and help us, O God, to tear them down, that we might come as a body to break bread and to fellowship with him. But we might come with undivided affection, undivided love. Father, we thank you for the things that you have given us, the good things, our wives, our families, our jobs, all the things that you've given us. Lord, we just couldn't even begin to list them all. And Father, we give you thanks that we are to strive to glorify you in the way that we use and enjoy and relate to those others. Father, help us, oh God, not to turn them into idols. Father, we plead with you for KC Bible Church that you would do a work amongst us, Father, that we would be a people sold out in love for the Lord Jesus and sold out in love for each other. Father, we've made mistakes. And Father, we just give you thanks. Father, we thank you this morning that you are a God of grace, that you're a God of love. And Father, you do show yourself merciful. And Father, we thank you that your spirit is working us. Father, we rejoice this morning in that great statement in Philippians, that you who began a good work in us will complete it. Father, thank you that you're still working on us. Father, thank you that you have given us time. Father, thank you for the word of God that reminds us of these things and strives to change us. Father, thank you for the spirit of God that uses the word of God to convict us. Father, we give you thanks. that you are working in us both to will and to work for your good pleasure. Father, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for this church, and we give thanks in Jesus' name, amen. Did you want to sing now or later? Okay. I'm just going to flip