Thank you, brother. Um, well, I just want to add my voice to a couple things real briefly. If you're new here, my name is Ricky. I'm one of the pastors here at the church. And if you did our 4 for 2024 challenge where you were— that you did 4 things, uh, in January to kick off your year strong, uh, we have your small reward.
It is an awesome sticker. Of Charles Spurgeon, and it says, "A Bible that's falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't." It's a good reminder to stick to your plan to read the Bible this year, and it's got a great picture of Spurgeon just staring at you. So I put it on my paper planner, so anytime I get up to plan the day, he just looks at me and is like, "Did you read your Bible?" So it'll be a help to you. If you did that challenge, you can grab that at the information table, and I also want to just— add my voice and say Alpha is just a wonderful ministry. I was privileged to participate last year in one of them.
And it is also a wonderful place for folks that maybe have not been in church for a long time or are kind of coming back to relationship with God. Maybe it's been a while, maybe you've drifted a bit, maybe it's been years since you've been in church and you're wondering, man, how can I get, how can I get reestablished in my faith? How can I get going? I really wanna encourage you to do Alpha. Alpha is a wonderful place to not only ask questions, but to see what the Bible teaches about many of the fundamentals of the Christian faith and be able to find a supportive community as you make that, that journey to reestablishing your relationship with the Lord.
So please do that, sign up for Alpha, we have room available.
And I wanna invite you now to turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Now this is one of the most wide-ranging ranging sermon manuscripts I've ever produced, because I'm gonna let you know what's in it. There's stuff on tattoos, there's stuff on dating boundaries, there's stuff on picking careers, there's stuff on Netflix, there's stuff on hobbies, there's stuff on alcohol and bars. There is a lot that this passage addresses, but before we proceed to those things, we want to be anchored into what the Bible says.
Look, it's so important for us when we have these topics like tattoos, dating, Netflix, careers, all that, that our starting point isn't, "What do I wanna do? And let me see if I can find a verse in the Bible to support that." Or at least say that, you know, not say anything hopefully and let me do it. But rather to start with God's word and work from there into our lives.
And so chapter 10, verse 23 is where we're gonna begin. This is God's Word.
All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.
But if someone says to you, 'This has been offered in sacrifice,' then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience. And I don't mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. This is God's word.
And Lord, I pray you give us ears to hear and eyes to see.
May you bring encouragement, conviction, change, and hope to us today through your word. In your name we pray, amen.
Well, this week I was super excited because I had been— well, I had been wanting to purchase a hat for a while. I don't mean like a baseball cap, I mean like a hat hat. Like a Stetson hat, like a real man's hat.
A hat that would say this 38-year-old is no longer a boy, but a man in this wide world. And I'd been kind of looking at different ones online. I thought this would be fun. I think it would be a cool purchase. So I got some birthday money.
I ordered the hat. The hat came. The hat came in a giant box. The box was— I'm not kidding— the Amazon box is like this wide. And this kind of tall, and you open the box and inside is a cardboard contraption to keep the shape of the hat.
The hat is like wedged into this contraption. It is covered in multiple layers of plastic to preserve it. And I just thought, this is the day my life changes. This is the moment where I finally, Become the rugged outdoorsman that I've always known myself to be. This is it.
And so carefully removed the plastic, carefully wedged it out of the cardboard contraption, walked over to the mirror, and I placed the hat on my head, looked in the mirror, and one resounding word echoed through my mind, nope, not that. And I turned around to ask Jen, before I could even ask Jen what she thought, she began laughing and then tried to recover by saying something like, "No, no, but what do you think?" And my 4-year-old just stared like that. And I can't— somebody said I should have taken a picture. No, I shouldn't have taken a picture because it would live on forever. It essentially looked like a small boy dressing up like a Canadian Mountie.
That's what I looked like. Hat was too wide and too tall. I don't know, it was just wrong.
And here's what I learned this week. I started with the wrong question.
This question I started with was, why can't I wear a Canadian Mountie hat? Why can't I? Who says I can't? I can, right? The right question to ask would have been, should I wear this hat?
Not why can't I wear the hat, should I wear it? And that is exactly what our passage is about today. The Corinthian church and so many of us in the Christian life are starting with the wrong question. The wrong question is, why can't I blank? If you have been a teenager or you have a teenager, often when you make a rule, the question will be, why can't I blank?
Why can't I go to so-and-so's house? Why can't I stay out late? Why can't I do this? And that's often the posture of our hearts in the Christian life. Why can't I do this?
Who says I can't do that? Is there a Bible verse that says it? Well, then I'm going to do it. If there's no Bible verse saying I can't do it, then I will do it. And I think we've all probably gone through this phase or maybe still are there, which is like, yep, I'm a Christian.
I'm going to follow Jesus. And if it says it's sin, like murdering someone, definitely not gonna do that. But everything else I can kind of do whatever I want, right? Why can't I live my life the way that I want?
6 · The pastor states the sermon's main thesis explicitly and announces the sermon's structure: the shift from 'can't I' to 'should I' is the movement of Christian maturity
And here's the main idea today from this text.
Christian maturity means moving from can't I to should I. That's the movement of Christian maturity. And so we're gonna begin with one key shift in our thinking, the move from can't I to should I.
7 · The pastor explains that 'All things are lawful' is the Corinthians' own statement quoted by Paul, reflecting their view that Christian freedom means no restrictions
Look at verse 23. All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.
All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Now, if you notice, probably in your Bible, the translation, there are quotation marks, which are unusual in the Bible, but those quotation marks are there for a reason. The quotation marks are— it means that that is a phrase that the Corinthians wrote to Paul in their letter to him, and with his letter, he is now responding to. And it sums up their view of life. "Now that we're in Christ, all things are lawful." And here's the thing, they're partially right.
8 · The pastor explains the Old Testament ceremonial and purity laws, their purpose in pointing to the need for and identity of the Savior, and how Christ's coming fulfilled these laws, transforming the believer's relationship to them
Because in the Old Testament law, there were many ceremonial laws. There were many purity laws. There were laws about what clothes you could wear, what food you could eat, how many times you had to bathe after this or that, how to approach the temple, what the priests were to wear, how they were you're not meant to approach the temple. On and on the laws went in Exodus and Numbers and Leviticus and Deuteronomy, all of those laws that maybe you've gotten stuck in in your Bible reading plan. And those laws, what we learn in the New Testament is, for example, Peter has this moment where he gets the vision of a sheet of animals.
And in his vision, the Lord says, "Peter, rise and eat." And he's like, "No, I'm not gonna eat those things. Those are unclean things." I'm a good Jewish boy. I know those are unclean. But the Lord calls him to rise and eat, which is really a metaphor for the gospel going to the Gentiles. But it's using the law because the laws that existed in the Old Testament, many of them were meant to point very specifically either to the people's need for a Savior or who the Savior would be.
For example, all the purity laws, all the washing laws and rinsing laws, all of those things, were meant to reinforce to God's people, you must be pure. And if you're to approach God, you must be even more pure. But the law also helped them see, I can't stay pure. I can't even keep my body pure, much less my soul pure. And it was meant to cry out for the need of a Savior that would come who would be pure and offer himself in sacrifice to purify his people.
So, the Old Testament laws pointing to Jesus have now been fulfilled. And as a result, the Corinthians rejoiced rightly that many of these laws are profoundly transformed by Jesus coming, moving, as the New Testament would say, from the law of the Old Testament to the law of Christ.
9 · The pastor applies the exposition by showing how freedom in Christ allows believers to enjoy things like bacon cheeseburgers to God's glory, but then identifies the Corinthian error: taking this freedom to mean 'I can do whatever I want' with no wisdom or discernment
So, Christians may do things, some of you will eat Bacon cheeseburgers this afternoon, joyfully into the glory of God. Amen. Right.
That is okay. That wouldn't have been possible in the Old Testament. Thank God we live in this era of church history. We can enjoy a bacon cheeseburger. We no longer have to offer sacrifices at temples.
We can eat shellfish. There are so many things available to us. So the Corinthians said, great. In light of that huge shift in the Old Testament, I can do whatever I want. All things are lawful for me.
No restrictions, no guidelines. If Jesus said specifically not to do it, of course, we'll try not to do that. But everything else in life is open to us. And in fact, why can't I?
10 · The pastor unpacks Paul's two responses to 'all things are lawful': not all things are helpful, and not all things build up
Now, the problem is that their approach, while partially correct, is profoundly misguided because listen to Paul's responses.
All things are lawful, but his response, not all things are helpful. Not all things are helpful.
It is good to say, is that a sin? And if it is, I'm not going to do it. But in some sense, taking action in our lives and just asking, well, is this a sin? Is this strictly a sin? And if it is, I'm not going to do it.
That is too low a bar in a sense for the Christian life. We want to not just aim at not sinning, We want to aim at being helpful, both to ourselves and to others. Instead of just asking, "Why can't I do this?" you're asking, "Well, how can you help?" Right? That is the move. And look at his second answer.
"All things are lawful," but then he replies, "not all things build up." That's a building metaphor. Not all things work together to advance your Christian life, work together to build the church, work together together to build a witness to the lost. We— I hope you see this, that the answer, I mean, the shift Paul is helping them make is from, "Why can't I just do this?" to, "Great, it is good not to sin, but can you be helpful? Can you build up?"
11 · The pastor illustrates the 'helpful' and 'build up' principles with his own family's leisure time, showing how they moved from individually consuming media (which wasn't sinful) to asking how rest could serve one another and build family bonds
Now, let me give you a concrete example of this with leisure time, time off, rest time, whatever you guys call it in your household. Because if you think about it, usually if you're an average person or average couple or average family, there are at least 1 or 2 hours in the evening that you have some time.
Sometimes, maybe not every night, but you get those pockets of time. And one of the things that I began to realize in our family a couple of years ago is that, that when we had those pockets of time, because we have a lot of activity in our family, we've got soccer practice and church events and all kinds of stuff. And I began to go like, okay, great. That hour, that 2 hours, whatever, that's me time, baby. And everybody in the family approached it the same.
Like, great, I'm gonna read that book I've wanted to, I'm gonna read this article I've wanted to, I'm gonna play this game on my phone I want to, this person's gonna read an audiobook, that person wants to watch a TV show, this person's gonna play a game on their iPad. We're all gonna be in the same room, but all in different worlds, just enjoying the gift of leisure and rest. Now, none of us were actively sinning. You know, we weren't watching terrible things on TV. And it was good that we received those moments of rest as gifts from God.
And part of my concern with a message like this is I don't want any of us to walk out of the message and think, great, now my Christian life is just— I'm just supposed to be a machine, a robot, a Terminator for Jesus, where I'm just— I have no emotions, I have no fun, I just ask all, you know, does this build up Will not do, you know, does Super Bowl build up, will not watch. You know, that's kind of a reductionistic and unhelpful use of these principles. But despite the fact that those things were good, the audiobook was good, I realized we were missing an opportunity that the shift from why can't we all just live in separate worlds and do separate things shifted that to, well, is there a way we can rest and be helpful to each other? Is there a way to rest and build one another up?
12 · The pastor applies the principle concretely: his family shifted from individualized leisure to shared activities (table topics, watching a show together) that rest and build up simultaneously
And I don't know about you, but I have 3 boys in my household that must become men.
And so I'm trying to build men in my household. Now, is there a way to teach them to rest well? There is. So we began to go, okay, well, how can we build them up? How can we build one another up and help one another?
And so silly things, but we started doing, through John Bogan's influence, the— I don't know even what you call it, the box of random family questions. That you like sit down and you just, table topics or whatever. You just grab one and you ask everybody, hey, what's your favorite childhood memory? What was our best vacation? What do you wanna do?
Would you rather be invisible or be able to fly? Right, that's just, you learn a lot about your kids 'cause you're like, oh, that kid wants to be invisible. That kid would love to fly and he's just having a great life. You know, that you learn about the kids and all of a sudden the rest time went from, well, why can't we just do whatever we want to how can we use it well? How can we rest and build, rest and help, right?
That's the shift Paul is trying to help us make. And so, you know, just this week we're watching "The Amazing Race" and somebody who's like, "I wanna play my iPad." Nope, you can't, we're all watching "The Amazing Race." It's what our— we pick one family show at a time. This is our current family show. And it was so good. You know, there's different things that happen.
There's a same-sex couple, we're pausing it, we're talking about all this stuff. We're resting and building one another up, I think. So, that's what Paul is trying to get the Corinthians to do.
13 · The pastor transitions from the general shift ('can't I' to 'should I') to the two specific questions that guide the shift: Does this help my neighbor? Does this glorify God? He announces these as the sermon's two main principles
Now, that's still a bit vague, isn't it? Okay, well, sure, but how do you really figure that out?
Well, he has two principles for the Christian life to help us make this shift, two guiding principles of the Christian life. Rather than asking, "Why can't I blank?" here's the questions he's helping us ask: "Should I do this?" and "Does this help my neighbor? That's the first question. And the second one's gonna be, should I do this, does this glorify God?
14 · The pastor expounds the first principle—does this help my neighbor?—showing how Paul redirects the Corinthians from self-focus to other-focus in two spheres: inside the church (wealthy members flaunting food at the Lord's Supper) and outside the church (chaotic services confusing unbelievers)
So first, should I do this, does this help my neighbor?
Verse 24, let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Now Paul is doing something really interesting here. He's moving them from an inward, a solely inward orientation to an outward orientation. Because when you're living in that mindset of why can't I do blank, who are you thinking about? Right?
Who you're thinking about? Yourself, right? You're not thinking about this person or that person or this person. You're thinking about yourself. And so Paul says, no, no, no, you gotta shift from just seeking your own good to seeking the good of your neighbor.
In verse 32, he continues this. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do. Not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. So you see this mindset shift in his interactions. Paul is not just going, great, how do I get as much out of this person as I can?
Rather, how can I help this person in my life? Not how can they help me? How can I help them? And he does this in two different spheres of life. First, He talks about the church of God.
Now, much of Paul's counsel to the Corinthian church is getting them to think not just of themselves, but of the other people in the church. There's this great example coming up in a couple of weeks where in the next chapter, we learn that when they're taking the Lord's Supper, here's what's going on. I'm going to pull it— I'm going to move ahead just in the letter for just a second. Here's what happens. The end of the church service for the Corinthian church was a big meal.
All right, it was kind of a potluck. People would bring a meal to eat. People would enjoy food and drink, and they would take the Lord's Supper together as well. But if some people were sitting at home and they had a lot of disposable income and they're looking at the jar of caviar and the fine champagne and the wagyu beef that they've got, and they're like, why not bring this? You know?
And so they're walking in But there's also people absolutely impoverished in the church that barely have a meal, whatever they could scrape together they're eating. And the rich people are coming in and going like, "Awesome, have you tried this champagne? It is simply marvelous." And the other person's looking at them like, "Bro, I literally have— this is like the food I have. I have no other food. This is— my money is gone until I get paid again tomorrow.
This is what I've got." And do you see the wealthy person coming in is asking the question, "Well, why can't I bring champagne and caviar? Why can't I? There's nothing in the Bible that says I can't." Paul is trying to help them see, but is it helpful? Does it help your neighbor for you to do that? Probably not.
Yeah, probably not. Doesn't build them up. Doesn't help them as they seek to follow Jesus. And then second, he wants you to think not just of inside the church, but outside the church. Will what you're doing help those who are not followers of Jesus?
And in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul addresses that in particular as well. 'Cause essentially what's happening in 1 Corinthians 14, to skip away there, the church is coming together and every single person in the church wants to share an encouragement, wants to share a tongue, wants to share a prophecy, wants to share, wants to use their spiritual gift. And so everybody's showing up going, why can't I share my verse, right? Why can't I do my thing? Why can't I pray?
And it's leading to chaos in their gatherings. And here's what's happening. Unbelievers that people have invited to church, they're walking in and they're seeing, one, a service of utter chaos, and two, a bunch of selfish people asking when it's their turn.
And Paul— now listen, you could sit at home and go, "Well, why can't I share my favorite verse with the whole church?" That's the wrong question, Paul is saying. The question is, how can I help those who don't yet know who Jesus is? That's the question. If you ask that question, you'd be thinking less about, "Man, I want to use my gift," and much more about, "Man, how can I serve them?" Right? That's the shift that Paul is helping them make.
Should I do this and does it help my neighbor?
15 · The pastor introduces the second principle—does this glorify God?—and unpacks its radical implication: there is no sacred-secular divide, no 'God time' vs
Second question, should I do this and can I do this for the glory of God? The passage is bracketed by the concern for neighbor and the concern to glorify God. Verse 31, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Now, this is an extraordinary statement because it means that there is no sectioning off of life between sacred and secular.
There is no sectioning off of life between God time and me time. It is all God time. It's all an opportunity to glorify God, and it is all a call to glorify God in every opportunity.
16 · The pastor cites Abraham Kuyper to reinforce the claim that Christ's lordship extends over every square inch of human existence, eliminating any sacred-secular divide
Abraham Kuyper famously said, "There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is over all, does not cry 'Mine.'" Meaning every area of life is an opportunity to glorify God, and every area of life we are called to glorify God.
17 · The pastor applies the 'no sacred-secular divide' claim by showing its sobering side: Netflix, jobs, children, and even lunch are not 'me time' but the Lord's domain to be stewarded for his glory
Now that is both sobering and encouraging.
It's sobering because your Netflix queue is not just your Netflix queue, it is the Lord's Netflix queue, right? Your job is not your job, it is the Lord's job that he's given you to steward. Your kids are not your kids, they are the Lord's kids given to you to steward. Your— listen, what you eat for lunch isn't your lunch. It's not me time.
The Lord's provision to you. And in every area, it's sobering because it means there's no, "Okay, great. If I just go to church, and if I just go to small group, and if I just read my Bible for 5 minutes a day, the rest of the week is me time, baby." That's— Paul is helping us see that that's not the way it is at all.
18 · The pastor shows the encouraging flip side: ordinary moments like drinking coffee or caring for a sick child are not meaningless but opportunities to glorify God by receiving his provision with gratitude and stewarding his gifts faithfully
But as sobering as it is, it's also profoundly encouraging because it means it brings meaning to these areas of our life that you think this is meaningless, this is a throwaway moment. No, man, that moment that you wake up and maybe, man, listen, I've used fancy coffee illustrations before.
Maybe you're just a Folgers person, man. Maybe you've had the same drip coffee maker for 30 years and that thing is still running so you're not replacing it and the Folgers is brewing and you can smell it and you grab that first cup and you go out and you see the sky, the sun become, you know, the sun coming over the ridge there. And you have that first sip of coffee and you go, "Yes." Now, that's not a meaningless moment. That is a moment that you can bring glory to God as the provider of that thing. To enjoy that, to enjoy creation is glorifying God.
To enjoy the coffee as a provision from him is glorifying God. It means all the mundane moments. Listen, we've had— we had a situation this week where one of our kids was sick and then, Got better finally after a long time. We're like, "We're clear." And then another kid this morning, "Beep, I feel hot." You know, you're like, "Ah!" Those moments of taking care of kids that have the fever for the third day and you're like, "What is going on? Why can't you get rid of this?" And they seem fine, they just have a fever so they can't go to school.
And you're passing the kid around and trying to figure out how to care for them. And you think, "This is a waste." No. No, it's not. It's a moment to glorify God. It matters to God.
It may not matter to anyone else in the world, but it matters to him. So whether you eat, whether you drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
19 · The pastor asserts that the two principles—help my neighbor, glorify God—function as guardrails, protecting believers in gray areas like TV watching and dating by asking questions that lead to wisdom rather than rules-lawyering
Now, these two principles, man, if you get this— this is just my prayer that we would get this today— because if you get these two things, it profoundly changes the way you live your life, not just for the hour and a half you're here on Sunday, but for every moment of every day. And these two principles, should I do this and does it Help my neighbor, does it glorify God? Those two principles are both guide rails for our Christian life and they're also momentum for our Christian life.
And let me explain it this way. These are guide rails in our Christian life because when we think, okay, I've got a free moment, I'm gonna watch a show.
In that moment, if you ask, well, why can't I watch this show? Then you end up watching a lot of shows, right? It's like, well, I'm not committing adultery. I'm just watching them commit adultery. Right?
It's not a big deal. You know? So somebody got convicted in here. I could see it. They were like that.
I'm trying to— I'm not looking at you. But in that moment, whatever you're watching, this provides guide rails. One, because it helps you ask, does this— can I honestly say that this show glorifies God? Now, there's a lot of shows. There are plenty of shows.
But does this one glorify God? Or does this one help my neighbor? Man, maybe you're watching this with your family and you know one of your kids is struggling with a particular thing. And maybe you're trying to, yeah, I don't know, help him not swear because he's learned that stuff at school. If you watch a show with a bunch of swearing, is that gonna help him?
Probably not, maybe not. And so you're using those as guardrails about, listen, you're dating somebody. This is the big question, right? Everybody's always asking like, how far is too far? How far can we go?
If you start with the question, well, why can't I do this? You're gonna end up in trouble, man, I am telling you right now. But it is far easier to ask the questions, okay, does doing this with my boyfriend or girlfriend actually help them? Or am I pulling them physically or emotionally to a place that I haven't committed yet? I'm not committed to receive that as their husband and wife.
So is this helping? Or maybe even the more sobering question, Would God approve? Does this glorify God? Right? You could give somebody a bunch of hard and fast rules, and maybe you do need some rules while you're dating, but I tell you what, man, it's gonna be so much clearer and you'll end up in such safer territory asking, does this help my neighbor and does this glorify God?
They're guardrails for the Christian life.
20 · The pastor shows how the two principles also provide momentum by transforming passive endurance into purposeful action
But also, these are momentum that propel us forward in the Christian life, right? When we are when we're not thinking in these categories, we often end up kind of stuck, kind of passive, just moving through life unaware of opportunities. Look, maybe you are— you're stuck in a job in which you feel like, man, this is the most pointless job in the world, either because you picked a career or a career was picked for you circumstantially that you didn't like. Or maybe you love your career.
You don't like this part of your job. And so your response to it will just be, "Ah, just got to get through this. It's a pointless, stupid part of my job, making a report for a boss that's not even going to read it, is going to criticize me for writing it, even though he asked me to," right? You're just thinking, that's where you're thinking. These two questions help.
Asking the question, look, even if that part of your job feels meaningless, can I help my neighbor today at this workplace? My neighbor who's my coworkers, my neighbor who's my boss, my neighbor who's the clients we serve. Can I do that? Yes. And can I glorify God even if this seems foolish and meaningless and all my work is ultimately discarded by everyone at the office?
Man, maybe doing that still glorifies God. If I've persevered, if I'm fighting to have a right attitude, if I'm doing it as unto the Lord, it's not meaningless, it's not thrown away, the Lord sees it and he is glorified and he rejoices over it. Right? It gives meaning to those moments. So asking, how does this guard me and how does this propel me forward, is so, so helpful.
21 · The pastor applies the two principles to vocation, contrasting the world's criteria (income and interest) with the Christian criteria (how has God made me, and how can I help my neighbors most?)
Now, I want to apply this to one big area. I began to touch on it already, one big area of vocation or work, right? Think of whatever you do 9 to 5, whether you're retired or whether you're a student or whether you're a stay-at-home mom or whether you're an engineer or a professor a professor or a nurse or a doctor or whatever you are, this area, these two questions are so helpful because here's the reality. I think too many of us live as if there is a sacred secular distinction when it comes to our work, right? We just go, okay, great, this is my God time because I'm in church or I'm in a small group.
And the rest of it, maybe it's not even me time. Maybe you're not even selfish. It's just, it's just work time. It's just meaningless, it's just reports, it's just whatever it is. Now, these two questions are so helpful.
First, in choosing a vocation. Look, if you're a young person and you're in that state of life where you're in high school or college or even post-college where you have some flexibility with your career, here's the way the world decides what career to do. It's income and interest. It's income meaning, am I gonna make a lot of money? And am I interested in it, do I like it?
And maybe they're flipped for you, maybe you're like, I don't care about lots of money, as long as it's meaningful, as long as I like it. You're like, okay, great. Those are the two questions the world asks, how much does it make? My kids have figured this out. They'll say like, oh, I wanna do that job, how much does that make, Dad?
And I'm just like, I don't know if this is helpful, guys. I'm really interested in driving this huge truck, the guy that drives the biggest truck on the construction site, You must be handsomely paid. I'm like, maybe not, maybe not, guys. And— or I'm like, yeah, you can get paid a lot as an accountant. What's an accountant?
You just, like, keep little books and you have spreadsheets. Like, oh, that probably pays terrible, right? Like, no, actually, weirdly, it pays a lot. You know, like, their view is, OK, income and interest. But these two questions, I think, provide such a better conversation.
You then ask, OK, how has God made me, and how can I help my neighbors the most with the way that God has made me? Look, maybe it would cause you to consider a career that you would normally not, or maybe it pushes you into your career, but in a different mindset. Man, if you're great at business and great at making money, it's not a selfish thing necessarily to go into business and make lots of money, but it changes your mindset to go from, I'm doing this because I like making money and I feel fulfilled, It changes the mindset if you go, I'm in this because I wanna help as many people as I can with the gifts God has given me, right? That changes your mindset and it changes what you do with that money you make as well. But it changes the way you select a vocation.
And it may help you say no to careers that you just think, okay, this is gonna be good. I was talking to one of the pastors today who was sharing a story from a long time ago of a particular field family that wanted to move to a super isolated area where there was— it was kind of a job that there was really no church community, no people around them, no support around them, but they wanted to do it. They felt called to do it. And the caution was, I don't know if this is going to be good for the neighbors. Like, I want to help my neighbors.
Well, but your first neighbors are your family. And I think you might hurt your family taking this particular job. And they were like, no, I think I'm called to do it. And it didn't go well. And so there are things, there are times where it's a guardrail for us.
22 · The pastor applies the principles to daily workplace scenarios: badmouthing the boss and getting promoted
But imagine then, okay, so you've selected a vocation, you're in the middle of it. It also helps you through both the highs and the lows of your job. As you approach conversations with your coworkers, if everybody's badmouthing the boss and you think, okay, this isn't necessarily gossip or slander, but I'm just gonna make another joke at the boss's expense. Asking the question, "Well, can't I make a joke at the boss's expense?" is probably the wrong question. The right question is probably, "Should I?
Will this help my neighbors who happen to be in front of me? Will this point them to Jesus? Will this glorify God?" Do I think God's like, "Yeah, that's a good one. You know, I don't know, your boss deserves it. He is overweight." Like, that's— I mean, really?
Like, you're just thinking, "No, that doesn't glorify God. I'm not going to make that comment." right, that this helps. And if you happen to get promoted, you go into those promotions not thinking, "Great, more for me, more power for me, more money for me. I get more freedom. I get the parking space.
I finally get an office with a window. Here we go, man. And I finally get to, you know, throw it in Randy's face, my arch rival at work." That's the wrong mindset. The right mindset is, how can you help your neighbors? If you're a boss now, if you've got people working under you, your mindset is, how can I help them?
Your mindset is, how can I glorify God by working as hard as I can, even though I don't have to anymore? Right? That— you see how it changes your work mindset? Those two questions: should I do this? Should I— should do— does doing this help my neighbor and does it glorify God?
23 · The pastor transitions from the two principles to three specific examples from the text that illustrate how to apply them in real-life situations
All right. And then briefly, a couple of real-life examples that Paul drops into that give us some insight help in applying those two principles.
24 · The pastor expounds the first example—personal freedom to eat meat sold in the market—showing that Christians are free to enjoy God's creation without anxious scrupulosity, but should not impose their particular exercise of freedom on others
First, the area of personal freedom. Look at verse 25: "Eat whatever meat is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and all the fullness thereof." So, this is a situation where they don't know where the meat is from necessarily, but as a Christian, you're allowed to just go into the market and buy whatever is there. It's not being actively offered to an idol in that moment.
And if you're comfortable, you can just take it home and eat it and eat that meat to the glory of God, right? You make the pepper-crusted steak with the special sauce to the glory of God and eat it, right? He's saying that's okay, that's fine, that's a good thing. And the rationale is the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it. So that steak, that cow, man, the Lord made it.
And we're gonna enjoy it, right? These delicious spices and ingredients, the Lord put them in the world and we're gonna enjoy it, right? Those are the way that a Christian thinks, that I'm gonna get maximum joy and maximum enjoyment of all that God has made for his glory. And this is the other thing that he pushes on later in verses 29 to 30. Sometimes people may prefer to do something different with their personal freedom.
And we should not impose the way we work out our personal freedom on them. Now, talking about the Bible is good, challenging one another is good, but we shouldn't be going, "Okay, this is my preference, so therefore you have to do this because this is my personal preference." Right? That's not helpful.
25 · The pastor applies the personal freedom principle to tattoos, showing that they fall into gray-area territory where Christians are free to choose differently
And let me give you one example of what this could look like, at the risk of going out on a limb with some people here. Let's talk about tattoos.
Okay? Now, some teenagers are like, "Okay, here we go. I got a lot riding on this, Pastor. What are you going to say?" All right, think of tattoos. There's an Old Testament prohibition against tattoos, but specifically it was meant to mark God's people as different from the surrounding people.
Now, that has been fulfilled in Christ. Our distinction comes not from not having a tattoo or being circumcised. Our distinction comes from being in Christ. So therefore, it's not a clear yes or no in the Bible when it comes to tattoos. That part of the law has been fulfilled by Christ.
And so you can choose to get a tattoo if you want to, or you can choose not to get a tattoo. Now, those questions still should personally guide you. Can I do this for the glory of God? And is my exercise of this freedom gonna somehow harm my neighbor in a way that I don't expect? And just straight up, should you do it, right?
Just because you can do it when you turn 18 doesn't mean you should do it, right? We've got, one of my brother-in-laws turned 18, was finally able to go to the tattoo shop. At age 18, he decided to get one of those tribal tattoos. You know what I'm talking about? Like back in the '90s or whatever, the tribal tattoo, man.
And he's now like a lawyer and he does everything he can to hide the fact that at 18 he got a weird tribal tattoo with letters that he didn't understand at the time. And I still don't know if he knows what it means. He just got it because he could, right? And Paul's not saying, okay, that's a bad idea, don't do that. But if you choose to get a tattoo, it may be meaningful.
It may be, you know, an exercise of your personal freedom. And if another Christian would say, "I wouldn't get one," doesn't mean that you're bound by that per se. It means you should still think about, does it glorify God, does it help others? And if you're free there, then you're free to participate. All right, that's personal freedom.
26 · The pastor briefly addresses teenagers confused by the tattoo example, clarifying that the passage's point is to help them move from rule-seeking ('Tell me yes or no') to wisdom-seeking ('Does it help? Does it glorify God?')
Second area, using your freedom to help someone. So verse 27, if one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, Go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. And so this is a situation where someone is invited over for a meal with an unbeliever. And Paul says, you don't need to at that moment get into all the sourcing of the meat and where it came from. You are free from the Jewish law.
And that means two things. One, under the Jewish law, you wouldn't even have been able to go to the pagan's house and eat with them in the first place. But it's a good thing that you do that. It's a good thing that you enter their world and build that relationship. And you're free from these dietary laws so you can eat to the glory of God, whatever they set before you.
And here's— you see what he's doing? He's saying you're using your freedom in Christ to serve someone who doesn't know Jesus. It is good to use your freedom in Christ to serve someone who does not know Jesus.
27 · The pastor illustrates using freedom to help someone with a personal story about taking his kids to a pop-up barbershop in a bar to build a relationship with an unbelieving barber
Jesus, I'll give you one example. A few years ago, there was a girl who was our friend.
She was not a Christian, she was a barber. And we were building a relationship with her, Jen and I, and she told us, hey, I'm doing a pop-up barbershop somewhere and here's the address if you guys wanna stop by. And so I thought, man, this is great. I'm gonna build our relationship with her and our two kids, like 2 and 4, they need haircuts. So we're gonna go, we'll go do the barber, you know, we'll wait for the pop-up barbershop and go get haircuts.
So we arrive at the address and it is, a bar. It is an alcohol-serving bar. And there's, like, a bar part, and then there's kind of a patio part where it's not clear, is that a bar? Is that the part of the bar? I don't know.
It's kind of a thing. And that's where they were doing the pop-up barbershop. And so here's the reality. Some Christians would go, okay, so what's the rule with Christians and bars? Is it always no, Christians should never be in a bar, especially if you're a pastor, or always yes, it's okay, we're free in Christ?
And the answer is, it depends.
Because in that moment, here's the reality. We've got kids, 2 and 4-year-old, right? We're not going to get drunk. We're not going to party. It's obvious we're not here with that crowd.
And yet we're building a relationship with this awesome girl who's wanting to learn about Jesus. And so I was like, let's do it. And so Jen and I talked about it. We took our kids in, we went to the pop-up barbershop, and here's the thing. Nobody had been getting a haircut because everyone was like, I don't know what this is.
I don't know. And as soon as our kids started to get their haircut, the other patrons were like, you know what? I probably could use a haircut too. And so they all started getting in line and I'm not even kidding. Cohen, my son, getting his haircut quietly was like the one that saved the pop-up barbershop that night and brought everyone over and it built our relationship and gave us great stuff to talk about.
To talk about. And I think it was, if I look back at it, I think it was a good use of our freedom to try to serve this relationship. I think it did point her to Jesus. She was amazed that we came. She was amazed that we brought the kids in.
And it led to so many conversations about Jesus, man, it was so good. And so Paul is saying there are gonna be times where you use your freedom not to serve yourself, but to serve someone else.
28 · The pastor expounds the third example—restraining freedom when eating meat offered to idols if the unbeliever identifies it as such
Third category, restraining your freedom in order to help someone. Verse 28, "But if someone says to you, 'This has been offered in sacrifice,' then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience." I don't mean your conscience, but his. So this is a situation where it's a little hard to see through the cultural baggage of this section, but essentially here's what happens.
When you sit down, the unbeliever may inform you, "Hey, we offered this in sacrifice this morning in our worship of Aphrodite or Apollo or whoever. Are you guys okay with this?" And here's the real question. In a sense, they're asking, "Are you a polytheist like us?" Because the Greeks, the Romans, they could have lots of gods. And so if you loved Apollo and he was like your main god, that's cool. But Apollo's fine if you offer a sacrifice to Aphrodite, that's not a big deal.
Or you offer a sacrifice to Zeus or whoever. And essentially what the person is asking is, "Oh, is Christianity like that? Can you follow Jesus but also eat something offered in sacrifice to Aphrodite? Is Jesus your kind of main god cool like Zeus is with other sacrifices to other gods?" And Paul knows in that situation It is going to confuse what they believe about Christianity if you participate with them. They are going to likely walk away thinking, oh, Christians are polytheists like us, they just have a new god they follow.
And so Paul says, if that's the case, do not eat it, because to that person you'll be participating in the worship of their god.
29 · The pastor illustrates restraining freedom with a college story about declining to party with classmates who wanted to know if Christianity was compatible with their lifestyle
Now, let me give you one other example maybe, 'cause I used a positive bar illustration, and some people are nervous right now, and you're like, "But you're gonna say not to go though, right, at the end?" So here's another example. So during college, it was in a real intense summer class, and I was trying to build relationships the best I could with other people in the class, and there were a group of people that I just knew that they were the, they liked to party, man. Monday morning was always rough for them. And they were struggle-busting it through the whole Monday morning half of the classes.
And you just knew Friday would roll around and they're like, yeah, like we're going downtown to Cincinnati or whatever it was then. Man, I sound so dated. People don't even go to Cincinnati, I think now. But back in the day, man, that was where it was. It was Cincinnati.
And so they would be like, all right, like end of the semester, man, like we're going to Cincinnati. We're going to party, man. We're gonna celebrate. Are you coming with us, man? Come with us.
And I knew and understood something in that moment. They knew I was a Christian. I built a little bit of a relationship. And what they're asking in a sense is, I know you're a Christian, I know church is a big thing for you, but can you also party with us? Meaning, is the way that you follow Jesus compatible with the way we live?
Can you do both? And I just thought, you know what? If I go, it's going to confuse everybody. Am I free to go to a place with loud music that I don't like? Sure.
Am I free to be around people drinking alcohol? Sure. But in this moment, this is not going to help my neighbors. It's going to actually confuse my neighbors because these people who see me as a Christian are going to begin to think, "Oh, I guess Christians can party just like us and still be Christians." So I needed a distinction. There.
And I said, "No, I can't go, man. I'm not into partying like that. Man, I would love to hang out any other time you guys want to." And we ended up going to dinner or something at the end of the semester, and then they went partying or whatever. And so think about it. What we crave in the Christian life is the rule.
Is going to a bar for a Christian okay? Yes or no? But Paul is helping us see, look, in gray areas, that's often the wrong question. The wrong question is, should you for the sake of helping your neighbor, and should you for the purpose of glorifying God? That's the question.
30 · The pastor transitions to the passage's closing exhortation—'be imitators of me as I am of Christ'—and draws two applications: we need mature Christians to imitate in gray areas, and ultimately we are imitating Christ himself
Now, here's where I want to end here. Paul ends with a particular emphasis, and I think it's right to retain that as we talk. Chapter 11, verse 1, he ends with this to wrap things up, "Be imitators of me," as I am of Christ. And there's two things there. One is that, look, we are helped in these gray areas by mature Christians going before us that we can imitate.
One of the big applications I hope you will see in this message is, man, there's a lot to sort through. I need help and input thinking, does this thing glorify God? Does this relationship glorify God? Does this thing, does, you know, just saying this, doing this, being with these people, do those things glorify God? You need help with that.
And so find a trustworthy person that you go, okay, they're not perfect, they're not Jesus, but I see where they're going. I see the way they're making decisions. I was talking to one of the guys in the College of Young Professionals group. He's talking about another guy that he connected with recently and just said, man, just hearing the way he talks and thinks about life is such a help to me because I'm trying to navigate all this stuff, and the way he thinks about it is something I want to learn to think about. So you wanna do that.
You wanna find people to imitate, but second, most ultimately, you're imitating Christ.
31 · The pastor grounds the entire call to maturity in Christ's own example
And that changes the feel at the end of this passage. Because here's the reality, you could go, okay, nobody lives like this. Nobody thinks like this. Everybody's just living their life and then going to church on Sunday.
It seems crazy to take every single part of my life and go, does this help my neighbor? Does this glorify God? That's so crazy. Who would do that? Jesus would do that for you.
All of the 33 years that he lived, he lived according to what we're talking about. What is the heart of the law? To love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And no one has ever done that other than Jesus perfectly. And he did it perfectly that he might perfectly go to the cross and offer his life for you.
And you talk about, man, being extreme about glorifying God and living for the good of your neighbor. That's the center of our faith. That is the center of what Jesus' work is. And it is exactly what Jesus has done for us. This is the way he's lived for us.
And when we grasp that, man, it begins to melt our hearts. It begins to pull us from inwardly thinking, well, does this Does this benefit me? Do I like this? What can I do? What can I not do?
How far can I go? What kind of job can I have? What kind of car can I drive? It moves us from that to go, man, I see the way Jesus has related to me. I see the way he laid his life down for me.
I see the way he glorified his Father in all things. That's what I want to live like. That's what I want to pursue. That is what I want to be said of me, that people could follow me as I follow Christ.
32 · The pastor guards against moralism by clarifying the gospel order: we do not obey to earn salvation; Jesus saves us first, and then calls us to obedience
We're not doing all of this so that at the end of our lives we could offer to the Lord, "Lord, I tried to love my neighbor really well.
I tried to glorify you. Is that enough? Is that enough to let me into heaven? Is that enough for me to draw near to you? Is that enough for me to be okay and not be fearful of your wrath against me?" That's not what we do.
Instead, we're running far as we can from the Lord. Jesus himself seeks and saves the lost in us. He saves us, transforms us, assures us of his love for us, adopts us into his family, covers us with his blood, cleanses us from sin, gives us a future and a hope. And we have all those things before he ever says, "Obey." But then he says, "Now live different." Now live asking, "Does this help my neighbor and does this glorify God?" That's what it means to be a Christian.
33 · The pastor closes with a prayer that synthesizes the sermon's main movements: remembering what Christ has done for us, asking the weird-but-beautiful questions ('Should I?' instead of 'Why can't I?'), and letting those questions guide us in a dark world
Would you stand and let's pray.
Lord, I pray that we would be Christians. Lord, if we bear the name Christian, we bear the name follower of Christ. And so, Lord, I pray that we would be true to our name. Lord, I pray that we would follow you. And I pray that the reality of what you've done for us would make an impact on us.
When we are tempted to think, "I don't want to help my neighbor," we would remember Jesus helped me. When we think, "I don't want to glorify God," we would think Jesus glorified God by going to the cross for me. Lord, may that have a transforming effect on us. On our life and on our heart today. And Lord, I pray, in a sense, Lord, I pray that we would be weird in the world around us.
I pray that where everyone else is asking the question, well, why can't I do this, why shouldn't I do that, we would be asking the weird questions, but the beautiful questions. Should we do it to help others? Should we do it to glorify God? And I pray that those things would govern us. Lord, may they be guiding lights in a world of darkness, in a world of murk and haze.
May those May those light our path as we seek to follow Jesus. I pray for your guidance, your help, and your direction. In Jesus' name, amen.