Sermon

1 Corinthians 10 — Do It All For the Glory of God!

March 9, 2003

One of the most powerful places I have ever visited is Dachau, the concentration camp outside Munich, Germany. As visitors we rode in eerie quietness to the outskirts of the camp where thousands were viciously killed and tortured. In the visitors’ center there is a sign that reads: “Those who forget the past are destined to repeat it.”

The beginning of 1 Corinthians 10 bears a similar message for the people of God. Paul goes to the Old Testament and urges the fledgling believers at Corinth not to repeat the spiritual failures of the past.

1 Corinthians 9 had ended with Paul’s picture of the faith as an athletic struggle, a contest. In 10:1 Paul begins with reference to the faith-struggle of the Israelites as they progressed out of bondage in Egypt through the years of rebellious wandering in the wilderness before their entry into the promised land.

Paul uses allegorical or typological interpretation of scripture here, which is unusual. Paul’s normal take on scripture is more straightforward and literal, as ours also normally should be. But there is a place for allegory and typology and here is one such place (cf. also Gal 4:21-31).

First, Paul draws an analogy between the ancient people of God and his new people in the church. Just as believers in Christ undergo baptism as an external sign of their entry into Christ, so Paul says that the ancient Israelites were baptized as they were enveloped in the cloud of the presence of God and when they passed through the Red Sea on dry ground. These, by the way, are wonderful side arguments to support the fact that Paul envisions Biblical baptism as complete immersion. It is being surrounded on all sides by water (whether vaporized cloud or congealed sea) as a symbol of being immersed in the Lord from head to toe.

Paul stresses the unity they shared as God’s people (vv. 3-4). Remember this has been one of Paul’s key themes in the book (1 Cor 1:10!). Paul does something here that is both allegorical and anachronistic. Allegory is when we interpret one thing to represent another. Anachronism is when something seems historically out of place (like a cowboy in a Western movie wearing a wristwatch). He does this when he describes the people drinking water from a rock. He refers here to the times when God supernaturally provided water for the people while they were in the midst of the desert wilderness by asking Moses to strike a rock (at Rephidim in Exod 17; at Kadesh in Numbers 20). Paul says that rock represented Christ. This is the allegory. He is the living water that alone slakes our thirst! The Christ, the second person of the Godhead, was there. And so, in some real sense, we can say Jesus was there. This is the apparent anachronism.

In v. 5 Paul reaches his point. These folk knew God. They were immersed in him. They were being filled and satisfied by Christ, and, yet, rebellion arose in their midst. “Those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it.”

Then in v. 6 Paul says these things occurred as examples (typoi) “to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.” What follows then in vv. 7-10 are four warnings of things to avoid, accompanied by illustrations or “examples” of how Israel failed in this area:

List of Warnings and Examples
Warning	Example

v. 7 Do not be idolaters	the golden calf (Exod 32:6)
v. 8 Do not commit sexual immorality	Baal Peor (Numbers 25)
v. 9 Do not test (ekpeirazo) the Lord	the sending of snakes (Numbers 21:4-9; cf. John 3:14: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.”)

Note: To test the Lord is to expect God to conform to our timetable and plans rather than to bow in ready obedience to the unfolding of his will on his terms. Jesus’ response to the temptation of Satan in Matt 4:17 is this quotation of Deut 6:16: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

v. 10 Do not grumble	the destroying angel (Exodus 12:23; 1 Chron 21:15)

Note: Grumbling or complaining is a persistent expression of dissatisfaction with the just circumstances that God provides.

Again in v. 11 (cf. v. 6) Paul says, “These things happened to them as examples (typoi)....” I think this verse is one of Paul’s most powerful statements as to why the study of the Old Testament scriptures is so important for us (cf. also Rom 15:4; 2 Tim 3:16). We do not have half a Bible! The New Testament’s message is incomplete without the Old Testament. We need to be immersed in both!

In vv. 12-13 Paul sums up his argument here on the warnings from Israel’s past. He begins in v. 12 with a staunch challenge to any who might feel any smug sense of having arrived spiritually: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” There is no resting on our spiritual laurels. Have you ever seen a football game where a wide receiver or a running back breaks open on a long run toward the end zone and they begin doing a little show boating. Then a defensive back rushes up behind them, sight unseen, and just before they cross the line into the end-zone, he knocks the ball away and causes a fumble. The triumphant hero becomes a goat. Paul basically says: No spiritual showboating is allowed on this side of the kingdom. If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!

V. 13 is one of the best loved – and most often misquoted – passages in the Bible. It begins with a statement on the universal human experience of the temptation to fall short of the glory of God: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.” That is a fascinating statement. Sometimes we like to plead special circumstances for our sin, don’t we? We like to feel that our situation is unique, or unusual, or beyond the norm. Paul’s response reminds me of the bumper sticker I saw that read: “You’re a unique individual, just like everybody else.” It reminds me also of the words of Ecclesiastes: “What has been will be again, what has been done, will be done again; There is nothing new under the sun” (1:9).

Paul is saying that there is no sin or struggle that we face that has not been met by others and the Bible is there to tell us about that. You name it and it is in here.

Have you ever hated someone so bad that you could strike them down? Consider Cain and Abel (Gen 3).

Have you ever been tempted to withhold from the Lord what is his and keep some for yourself? Read what happened to Achan (Joshua 7).

Have you ever struggled with temptation to commit adultery? Read about David with Bathsheba (2 Sam 11-12 and Psalm 51).

Has your faith been challenged by the seemingly senseless loss of someone you love, like a precious child? Consider Job who got the news that all his children had died on the heels of finding out he had lost all his livestock and servants and wealth (Job 1).

Have you gotten news of an illness in your body that will lead to your imminent death and been tempted to bargain with God for longer life? King Hezekiah faced this very thing (Isaiah 38).

Let’s be reminded that Paul is speaking not just to individuals but to the church. Just as the church (Israel) in days past faced problems with idolatry (cf. 1 Cor 8); sexual immorality (cf. 1 Cor 6); testing and grumbling (cf. 1 Cor 3), so we should not be surprised that these same problems surface among God’s people at Corinth. Paul says this is par for the human course.

What is crucial is what comes next: “And God is faithful.” Humanity is constantly unfaithful, untrustworthy and broken. God is constantly faithful, trustworthy, and whole. Note where Paul places the stress. He does not say: And humanity is getting better and better. And soon we will be able to engineer a new world order through human progress and ingenuity and technical advance. No, the Bible is the only book that tells us the truth of who we are as human begins and where our only hope lies, and it is not in ourselves. And God is faithful.

Then Paul provides this precious promise that has meant so much to so many facing pain and hardship: “He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” Now this does not mean that we, as believers, are exempt from suffering. Nor does it mean that God has a kind of “suffer-ometer” (a devise for measuring suffering) up in heaven and he can calibrate and measure and test our mettle to add stress just a sliver of an inch below our breaking level. And he pushes it up to that very point to test us. This makes God a kind of temptation scientist testing us in the lab of suffering. This kind of interpretation comes when we forsake the context. What matters is the sentence that comes next: “But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

When we face the universal temptations that come with human sinfulness, God’s promise to us as individual believers and as a church is that God will provide the resources we need to stand up under it.

Of course, the ultimate resource, the way out (cf. John 14:6), the jack that lifts the unbearable burden of sin from our backs, is Jesus himself, the rock from which flow streams of life giving water. See how Jesus is described in Hebrews 4:15: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin.”

With this warning from the past completed, Paul turn again to contemporary matters in v. 14: “Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry!” Paul is back to the issues he addressed in 1 Cor 8 about the appropriateness of believers eating food sacrificed to idols and the influence that their actions have on weaker brothers. In vv. 16-17, Paul urges unity in the church again, especially in the Lord’s Supper (cf. 11:17-33). In vv. 18-22 Paul seems to call on the believers to set themselves apart from the surrounding paganism. This comes through strongly in v. 21: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have part in the both the Lord’s table and the table of demons” (cf. 2 Cor 6:14-18). As one of my old seminary professors used to say: “When you sit on the fence the only thing you get are split britches.” Paul calls on the believers to clearly identify with the ways of Christ rather than the ways of the world.

In v. 23 Paul again quotes the “freedom crowd” at Corinth, those who were abusing liberty in the name of avoiding legalism. Their slogan: “Everything is permissible for me” (cf. 6:12) is twice refuted by Paul. Not everything is beneficial or constructive. Then in v. 24 Paul expresses what I think is his reflection on the Golden Rule that Jesus taught (”Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”). Paul’s variation on that theme: “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others” (cf. Rom 12:3). This goes so against our natural inclination. Our first impulse is to look out for and promote and protect ourselves. Again, Paul says the way of Christ is the way of self-forgetfulness and self-negation for the sake of the other. Remember the old “I am third” pins? God first; other second; myself third.

Paul then returns to the problem of conscience related to eating food sacrificed to idols. In vv. 25-26 Paul quotes Psalm 24:1 to say that no foods are unclean in themselves before God. Paul goes on to defend the believer’s acceptance of an invitation to share a meal with a pagan non-believer, if one does not do anything to violate his conscience of the conscience of a brother (vv. 27-30).

Finally in v. 31 Paul lays down a general law that is to guide the life and conscience of the believer: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” I love this about scripture. So often we do not have in it a minute, technical guidebook that answers our every question about every single situation in life. Instead, it lays down this tremendously broad principle.

The question I am to ask of my every action, word, choice, activity is simply this: Is this helping me to bring glory to God? Or, is it hindering me from bringing glory to God?

In v. 32 Paul urges again that the believers not cause anyone to stumble in the faith. Note he says whether Jews, Greeks, or the church of God. We are to watch our lives with outsiders (Jews and Greeks) and insiders. Note how Paul seems to think of believers as a “third race.” Again, Paul hits his incarnational mission: To adapt his needs to the needs of others so that he might win them to Christ (v. 33; cf. 9:22-23; 10:24).

As we review this chapter we see that Paul urged the believers to learn from the lessons from the past. That though temptation would come, that God would provide a way for us to stand up under pressure (v. 13). That way is Jesus. And once we are rescued by him, our task becomes that of not seeking our own good, but the good of others (v. 24). In doing this we find our life’s goal and joy. We are no longer living for ourselves, but we discover the joy of doing all for the glory of God.

This week I went back to re-read a little spiritual classic called “The Practice of the Presence of God” by a 17^th century French monk named Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence (aka Nicholas Herman) was a clumsy kind of Jerry Lewis klutz. He was a disaster as a soldier in the Thirty Years War, captured and nearly hung. He served as a footman to the treasurer of the King of France who described him “as a clumsy lummox who broke everything.” Finally, it was decided that the only good place for him was a monastery so he joined the Discalced Carmelites. He did not do much better here, and was given menial tasks in the kitchen and then later in the shoe shop. He accepted all the tasks, no matter how menial without complaint and in high spirits. Through the years those around Brother Lawrence were moved by his simple life of holiness, his constant conversation with the Lord, and his willingness to live in obscurity and take on the most menial tasks. At his death in 1691, those who knew the man were so moved by his humble life that they gathered up a few letters and short notes that he wrote and these became the basis for the little devotional classic that has touched thousands through he years.

In one of those notes, Lawrence wrote this:

1. Always see God and his glory in everything we do, say, and undertake; that the end we should seek is to be the most perfect adorers of God in this life, as we hope through all eternity; take a firm resolution to overcome, with God’s grace, all the difficulties which are met in the spiritual life.

2. When we enter upon the spiritual life, we should consider in depth who we are and we will find ourselves deserving of all contempt, unworthy of the name Christian, subject to all kinds of miseries and countless accidents which upset us and cause our health, our temperament and our disposition, both interior and exterior, to fluctuate–in short, persons whom God must humble with an infinite variety of suffering and travails, within as well as without.

3. We must believer unquestioningly that this is for our own good, that it is pleasing to God to sacrifice ourselves to Him, that it is by His divine Providence that we are abandoned to all kinds of conditions, to suffer all kinds of sufferings, miseries and temptations for the love of God, as long as it pleases Him, since without this submission of the heart and mind to the will of God, devotion and perfection cannot exist. (Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, Trans. John J. Delaney, New York: Doubleday, 1977, 99-100).

Jeffrey T. Riddle
Pastor, Jefferson Park Baptist Church

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Sermon

1 Corinthians 10 — Do It All For the Glory of God!

March 9, 2003

Jeffrey T. Riddle Pastor, Jefferson Park Baptist Church

Jeffrey T. Riddle
Pastor, Jefferson Park Baptist Church