SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the Sermon Podcast of Mission Hills Church, located in San Marcos, California.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that this message blesses you and your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 10 1 through 11.1.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: And all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink.
SPEAKER_00: For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: Now these things took place as an example for us, that we might not share or desire evil as they did.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written.
SPEAKER_00: The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
SPEAKER_00: We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Now these things happen to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, not on whom the on whom the end of the ages has come.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he takes stands take heed lest he fall.
SPEAKER_00: No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
SPEAKER_00: God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.
SPEAKER_00: But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: I speak as to sensible people.
SPEAKER_00: Judge for yourself what I say.
SPEAKER_00: The cup of blessings that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body.
SPEAKER_00: For we all partake of the one bread.
SPEAKER_00: Consider the people of Israel, are not those who eat the sacrifices of participants in the altar?
SPEAKER_00: What do I imply then?
SPEAKER_00: That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.
SPEAKER_00: I do not want you to be participants with demons.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
SPEAKER_00: Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?
SPEAKER_00: Are we stronger than he?
SPEAKER_00: All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.
SPEAKER_00: All things are lawful, but not all things build up.
SPEAKER_00: Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: For 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: But if someone says to you, this has been offered in a sacrifice, then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience.
SPEAKER_00: I do not mean your conscience, but it's for why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience?
SPEAKER_00: If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced?
SPEAKER_00: Because of the because of that for which I give thanks.
SPEAKER_00: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God.
SPEAKER_00: Just as I try to please everyone and everything, I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.
SPEAKER_00: 11.1.
SPEAKER_00: Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: I'm one of your elders, and I have the privilege of bringing the word of the Lord to you today.
SPEAKER_02: Over the past several weeks, we've been walking through this epistle of the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth.
SPEAKER_02: We call this series Sinners and Saints.
SPEAKER_02: Because the reality of the Church of Corinth, which is the same reality of the church at Mission Hills Church, we're a mixed bag.
SPEAKER_02: You know, God declares us saints, but in practice, we also find ourselves to be sinners.
SPEAKER_02: And as we've been walking through this book, we're we're learning what does it mean to live in that tension of what God has created in us and what God is still doing and the reality of where we find ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: And as as I thought about preparing for today, uh, one of the things that my family and I have always gotten a kick out of, um, maybe your family does too, but it's uh warning labels.
SPEAKER_02: You know, sometimes you come across a warning label that makes you stop.
SPEAKER_02: You do a double case, uh you do a bit of a double take and you say, This really needed be printed?
SPEAKER_02: Like there's really somebody who who needed this warning.
SPEAKER_02: Um, some of them are just absurdly obvious.
SPEAKER_02: Um my Pop Tarts come with a warning.
SPEAKER_02: They warn me that pastry filling may be hot when heated.
SPEAKER_02: Good to know.
SPEAKER_02: Um another warning instructed owners not to use their microwave oven as a device to dry household pets.
SPEAKER_02: Again, somewhere someone thought that was a good idea.
SPEAKER_02: So, as funny as those are, every one of them exists for a reason.
SPEAKER_02: Somewhere, someone learned the hard way.
SPEAKER_02: Manufacturers don't put warnings on products because they enjoy telling people no.
SPEAKER_02: They don't print them to ruin your day, they print them to keep people safe, to keep people from any needless harm.
SPEAKER_02: And so as we come to the passage that Betty read for us today, it's exactly what we find: a warning.
SPEAKER_02: Not because Paul wants to restrict the Corinthian church's freedom, not because he's trying to take something away from them, but because he's trying to preserve something that's infinitely more precious.
SPEAKER_02: He loves the church too much to watch them slowly drift into something that he knows will ultimately destroy them.
SPEAKER_02: So if you have your Bibles, I'd encourage you to open with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 10.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that struck me this week as I've lived in this passage is Paul isn't simply going into this story at the beginning where he's just trying to do a lesson on Israelite history.
SPEAKER_02: He's inviting the people to see themselves in Israel's story.
SPEAKER_02: Notice how he begins.
SPEAKER_02: I do not want you to be unaware, brothers.
SPEAKER_02: It's a figure of speech by saying, I don't want you to be unaware.
SPEAKER_02: By using that double negative, what he's saying is this is something you really need to know.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying, church, lean in, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_02: And so I want to say that same thing to you as we start.
SPEAKER_02: Lean into this, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_02: Um in the next verse, he does something somewhat unexpected.
SPEAKER_02: He calls the Israelites our brothers.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you'll recall, um, who are we talking to, or who is Paul talking to in this passage?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he's talking to believers in Corinth.
SPEAKER_02: Corinth was a Greek city.
SPEAKER_02: It was largely, you know, the church was likely largely non-Jewish.
SPEAKER_02: These were Gentiles.
SPEAKER_02: They weren't Jewish by birth, but Paul deliberately invites them to participate in Israel's story.
SPEAKER_02: Through Christ, they now belong to the people of God.
SPEAKER_02: This isn't someone else's story, as it were.
SPEAKER_02: This is their story too.
SPEAKER_02: And that's where this passage starts to press on each of us as well.
SPEAKER_02: Because there's a part of us that naturally assumes we're different.
SPEAKER_02: Those were people who lived a long time ago.
SPEAKER_02: They were different.
SPEAKER_02: What does that have to do with me?
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe you look at the Israelite story and you start to wonder, and you say things like, how could they have done that?
SPEAKER_02: How could they have watched the Red Sea split in two and they walk through on dry land?
SPEAKER_02: How could they eat bread that literally came from heaven?
SPEAKER_02: How could they drink water that came out of a rock and after all of that still turn away from God?
SPEAKER_02: The answer that Paul gives is simple.
SPEAKER_02: Don't distance yourself from them, rather see yourself in them.
SPEAKER_02: Notice what he emphasizes here.
SPEAKER_02: Five times in a few verses, he uses this word all.
SPEAKER_02: And a good principle when you're studying the Bible is when you see terms repeated, that's probably there for a reason.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says, all were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses, all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink.
SPEAKER_02: The two things that stand out to me, one is like this was universal.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody participated in this.
SPEAKER_02: And what Paul's doing is he's piling up privilege after privilege after privilege.
SPEAKER_02: Look at the way these people were blessed.
SPEAKER_02: They were all under the cloud.
SPEAKER_02: Throughout Israel's wilderness journey, that cloud represented God's presence.
SPEAKER_02: The God who had redeemed them, who had rescued them from Egypt, was walking with them.
SPEAKER_02: He was traveling with them as they passed through the sea.
SPEAKER_02: You know, the waters that became salvation for Israel became judgment for it for Egypt.
SPEAKER_02: Their rescue wasn't something that they accomplished.
SPEAKER_02: It was wholly something that God was doing on their behalf.
SPEAKER_02: So Paul, when he says that they were baptized into Moses in the cloud of the sea, he's not saying that, to be clear, he wasn't saying that they were practicing Christian baptism, but just like baptism in our context marks our identification with Christ, the crossing of the sea marked their identification with Moses, the covenant mediator.
SPEAKER_02: It was a different covenant, but it was still this identification.
SPEAKER_02: They'd been transformed.
SPEAKER_02: They were no longer slaves who lived in Egypt.
SPEAKER_02: They were God's redeemed people.
SPEAKER_02: But then came the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: God fed them with manna.
SPEAKER_02: He brought water from a rock.
SPEAKER_02: That's impressive.
SPEAKER_02: Day after day, year after year, God faithfully sustained them.
SPEAKER_02: Can you hear?
SPEAKER_02: Do you capture there what Paul's doing?
SPEAKER_02: He's intentionally describing Israel's experience in language that would have resonated with the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_02: Israel passed through waters.
SPEAKER_02: The Corinthians had been baptized.
SPEAKER_02: Israel ate spiritual food, water and manna, bread.
SPEAKER_02: The Corinthians gathered at the Lord's table to partake of the elements.
SPEAKER_02: Israel drank spiritual drink.
SPEAKER_02: The Corinthians share the cup of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: The experiences weren't identical, let's be honest, but they're analogous.
SPEAKER_02: Like Israel, the Corinthian church were recipients of astonishing grace.
SPEAKER_02: Then Paul says something that's kind of astonished readers for centuries.
SPEAKER_02: He says, they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them.
SPEAKER_02: And the rock was Christ.
SPEAKER_02: See, in the Old Testament, in the story of Israel's wilderness wanderings, there's two occasions where God miraculously brings water from a rock.
SPEAKER_02: One occurs early on in Exodus chapter 17, where Moses strikes the rock and water comes out.
SPEAKER_02: And there's another one nearly 40 years later where again Moses strikes the rock and water came out.
SPEAKER_02: Now, because these stories are so similar, a Jewish tradition actually developed that imagine the rock itself followed, it was the same rock and it just kind of followed them around.
SPEAKER_02: Now, Paul's not commenting on that.
SPEAKER_02: He's not saying, yeah, this was some kind of magical rocky water fountain that just moved around with them.
SPEAKER_02: But he he uh alludes to the tradition to point to something that's more important.
SPEAKER_02: He says that rock was a source of life, but then he goes further and says, that source of life was Christ himself.
SPEAKER_02: Long before Bethlehem, long before the incarnation, the eternal Son of God was present with his covenant people, sustaining them, preserving them, providing for them.
SPEAKER_02: Because someone might say, well, Israel didn't have what we have.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we, if only they had known Christ, they probably wouldn't have fallen.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul quietly says here, no, they did.
SPEAKER_02: Not in the fullness that we on the other side of the cross know him.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we know the cross, we know the resurrection, but the same covenant Lord who sustains his people today was the same covenant Lord who sustained his people then.
SPEAKER_02: So everything they had, every privilege, every provision, every blessing ultimately came from the Lord, came from Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And this is exactly the point that Paul wants the Corinthians to see.
SPEAKER_02: Like Israel before them, they shared an extraordinarily abundant grace.
SPEAKER_02: And that's where every Christian story begins.
SPEAKER_02: With a faithful God who graciously rescues.
SPEAKER_02: But then with one word, this entire chapter changes.
SPEAKER_02: Nevertheless.
SPEAKER_02: I think this might be the saddest word in the chapter.
SPEAKER_02: After all that grace, after all that provision, after Christ Himself had faithfully sustained his people, Paul writes, nevertheless, with most of them God wasn't pleased, and they were overthrown in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: It's heartbreaking.
SPEAKER_02: Not because God failed his people, but quite the opposite.
SPEAKER_02: The tragedy of Israel's story is that after everything God had done for them, they stopped trusting God, the God who never stopped being faithful to them.
SPEAKER_02: So again, our instinct is to ask the question, how could they?
SPEAKER_02: But Paul didn't just tell this story so we could stand at a safe distance and shake our heads and point at them and say, You fools.
SPEAKER_02: He called them our fathers.
SPEAKER_02: He invites us to see ourselves and them.
SPEAKER_02: So the question isn't ultimately, how could they?
SPEAKER_02: It's how could we?
SPEAKER_02: What Paul goes on to do is he points to four episodes in Israel's wilderness journey.
SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, if we're honest, if you've read this story, he could have chosen many others.
SPEAKER_02: Israel's story contains no shortage of failures on behalf of the people.
SPEAKER_02: But these four reveal the same underlying reality.
SPEAKER_02: There are four pictures, four glimpses, four windows into the same human heart.
SPEAKER_02: The first takes us to Mount Sinai.
SPEAKER_02: Moses goes up to the mountain to meet with God.
SPEAKER_02: And as days pass, the people start to get a little bit restless.
SPEAKER_02: What's going on here?
SPEAKER_02: They wanted something they could see, something they could control.
SPEAKER_02: It was kind of, this is what they were used to.
SPEAKER_02: And so they fashioned the golden calf.
SPEAKER_02: It's tempting to reduce that story to idol worship, but I would argue that the issue runs much deeper than just idol worship.
SPEAKER_02: Israel did not understand itself simply to be abandoning Yahweh for some unrelated God.
SPEAKER_02: Aaron actually announced as they were participating in this that it would be a feast to the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: They still wanted God, but they wanted a God they could see, a God they could control, a God they could manage, a God that would fit into their timetable, that would perform the way they wanted this God to.
SPEAKER_02: They got tired of waiting for God to act, and so they took matters into their own hands.
SPEAKER_02: The idol was just the symptom.
SPEAKER_02: Distrust was the disease.
SPEAKER_02: The second example that Paul gives here is Israel's encounter with Baal Payor in Numbers 25.
SPEAKER_02: You know, they're seduced by the women of Moab, and so the people enter into sexual immorality and pagan worship.
SPEAKER_02: And again, that behavior matters deeply.
SPEAKER_02: I'm certainly not trying to minimize the importance of not engaging in those practices, but beneath it all, what you have is Israel looking somewhere other than the covenant Lord for life, for satisfaction, for meaning.
SPEAKER_02: The third example may be the most striking because Paul says we must not put Christ to the test.
SPEAKER_02: The one Israel repeatedly questioned in the wilderness was that covenant Lord Himself, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Again and again, they would ask questions that would imply is God really with us?
SPEAKER_02: Can God really be trusted?
SPEAKER_02: Will God really provide?
SPEAKER_02: Now, we talked a lot about how God did all those things, so their problem wasn't a lack of evidence.
SPEAKER_02: But they began doubting the very character of the God who had saved them.
SPEAKER_02: Finally, Paul mentions grumbling.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, who doesn't complain?
SPEAKER_02: It might seem very tame compared to things like idolity and sexual immorality, but this is something that's important to Paul.
SPEAKER_02: That's why he brings it up here.
SPEAKER_02: And I'd argue that Israel's grumbling is more than just complaining about difficult circumstances.
SPEAKER_02: Every complaint implicitly was an indictment against God.
SPEAKER_02: Every murmur implied that the old life, life in Egypt, was actually better than life with God.
SPEAKER_02: It was like this idea that maybe God's promises couldn't be trusted.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe his presence wasn't sufficient for us.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see the thread?
SPEAKER_02: Different circumstances, different sins, but the same heartbreak.
SPEAKER_02: In every case, what we see here is the nation of Israel stopped trusting.
SPEAKER_02: Stopped trusting that the faithful God who had rescued, provided for, and sustained them would continue to be enough.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why Paul tells this story to the Corinthian church.
SPEAKER_02: He wants them to recognize that spiritual drift happens.
SPEAKER_02: Nobody wakes up one morning and says, you know what I'm going to do today?
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to abandon the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: It begins quietly, subtly, almost imperceptibly, a small compromise here, you know, reasonable justification there.
SPEAKER_02: You know, slowly but surely your heart starts looking elsewhere for the life that only God can give.
SPEAKER_02: And before long, what once seemed unthinkable is suddenly perfectly reasonable to us.
SPEAKER_02: And that's the tragedy of Israel's story.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul's burden here is that Israel's story need not become our story.
SPEAKER_02: In verse 11, he writes, these things happened for them as examples.
SPEAKER_02: They were written down for our instruction, on whom the ends of the age has come.
SPEAKER_02: Israel's story is far more than just ancient history.
SPEAKER_02: These events were preserved so that we would recognize the ways our hearts are prone to wander from God, the God who's been unfailingly faithful to us.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's interest here is not nostalgia.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, remember those, remember that, remember those days?
SPEAKER_02: Wasn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_02: You know, the emphasis here is not Bible trivia.
SPEAKER_02: Like, who can answer the question, you know, what happened at Baal Payor?
SPEAKER_02: Like, that's not what we're talking about here.
SPEAKER_02: What Paul's interested in is formation.
SPEAKER_02: Israel's story has become our teacher.
SPEAKER_02: And so everything we've seen so far leads Paul to his first warning.
SPEAKER_02: If Israel's story teaches us anything, it's this.
SPEAKER_02: Don't presume that yesterday's experiences of God's grace guarantees today's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_02: Listen to how Paul says it.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, if anyone thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't think Paul is primarily speaking about arrogance.
SPEAKER_02: I think he's speaking about something a bit more subtle, presumption.
SPEAKER_02: The Corinthians had been baptized.
SPEAKER_02: They gathered at the Lord's table.
SPEAKER_02: They possessed spiritual gifts that gave them all kinds of blessings.
SPEAKER_02: They prided themselves on their knowledge.
SPEAKER_02: They knew a lot.
SPEAKER_02: It would be easy to conclude, I understand, Paul, but like we're different.
SPEAKER_02: That would never happen to us.
SPEAKER_02: But Paul gently warns them and he says, be careful.
SPEAKER_02: Don't confuse familiarity with Christ for faithfulness to Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Israel also experienced God's presence, received his provision, lived up under his covenant.
SPEAKER_02: Christ Himself sustained them in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: Yet none of those privileges could be a substitute for a heart that continued trusting God.
SPEAKER_02: And I think the warning is every bit as necessary for our church today as it was for the church in Corinth.
SPEAKER_02: It's possible to know the language of faith, it's possible to participate in church life, to say the right things, to do the right things.
SPEAKER_02: I know the words to all the songs, I receive communion, I go to a life group, I study scripture, I'm involved in ministry, and slowly we start to place our confidence in those experiences.
SPEAKER_02: Rather than in the God to whom they point.
SPEAKER_02: Communion, baptism, these are gifts of grace, but they're signposts, they're not destinations.
SPEAKER_02: They point us to Christ, but they're never intended to be a substitute for living in covenant fellowship with him.
SPEAKER_02: Paul speaks words here that many times we've heard these, and oftentimes they're kind of detached from their context.
SPEAKER_02: He goes on to say, No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man, and God is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: You know, these words are some of the most familiar and maybe some of the most misused or misunderstood in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we hear these verses, and sometimes we think that this applies to any temptation we face.
SPEAKER_02: Like, I might be tempted to lie, to cheat, to steal, to look at pornography, to give into some other private sin.
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, and what God's saying here is like, you know, God's going to prevent any of those things from happening to me.
SPEAKER_02: While the truth of God's faithfulness speaking to those circumstances is certainly true, that's not the specific issue that I think Paul's addressing here.
SPEAKER_02: In this passage, Paul's not talking primarily about isolated individual temptations to commit individual sins.
SPEAKER_02: He's talking about the testing of our covenant faithfulness, the same wilderness test that Israel faced and repeatedly failed.
SPEAKER_02: He's not suddenly changed the subject.
SPEAKER_02: He's still talking about Israel.
SPEAKER_02: He's still talking about Corinth.
SPEAKER_02: He's still speaking about us.
SPEAKER_02: The test confronting the Corinthian church that Paul was addressing is the same one that Israel confronted in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: Would they continue to trust the faithful God or would they seek life somewhere else?
SPEAKER_02: So Paul's saying, in effect, you're not the first person.
SPEAKER_02: You might think you're the first person to face this test, but you're not.
SPEAKER_02: Every generation of people who followed God have faced similar moments when faithfulness seems difficult to reconcile with their experience.
SPEAKER_02: Every generation's been tempted to take matters into their own hands.
SPEAKER_02: When God's ways became difficult or mysterious or slow, okay, God, I've got this, I'll take this now.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I know you say I should do this, but I'm going to do that.
SPEAKER_02: And that and precisely there, this is where Paul directs our attention, not to ourselves, but to our, not to our resolve, not to our faithfulness.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's point here, the resolution of this testing, of this temptation, is not try harder, dig deeper, be better.
SPEAKER_02: He points us to the covenant Lord, whose faithfulness has been the dominant note of the entire passage.
SPEAKER_02: He says, When facing temptation, remember this God is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: Those words are not a new development in the story.
SPEAKER_02: This is the constant that's been running through it the whole time.
SPEAKER_02: The God who called Israel is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: The God who rescued Israel is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: The God who fed them, sustained them, pursued them, and remained patient with them when they rebelled is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: Israel's circumstances changed.
SPEAKER_02: Throughout Scripture, we see Israel's hearts changed.
SPEAKER_02: God never did.
SPEAKER_02: Our confidence has never rested on our ability to hold on to God, but his faithfulness to hold us fast.
SPEAKER_02: Now, to be clear, what Paul's not promising here in this is an easy life.
SPEAKER_02: He's not saying that God's never going to allow us to face temptation or trials or testing.
SPEAKER_02: He's not saying that the God will never permit us to face more than we can handle.
SPEAKER_02: The wilderness itself proves otherwise.
SPEAKER_02: Left in themselves, Israel repeatedly discovered they can't bear it.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's confidence rests in the character of God.
SPEAKER_02: The faithful God who calls them doesn't abandon his people.
SPEAKER_02: So within every test, he faithfully provides a path of obedience by which people can continue trusting him rather than surrendering.
SPEAKER_02: Notice how Paul describes it.
SPEAKER_02: He says that God provides a way of escape, so you may be able to endure it.
SPEAKER_02: That's important.
SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes we read this and we focus on the escape part, as though this is some kind of an escape hatch, as though I can, you know, get out of the wilderness, get out of the trial.
SPEAKER_02: It's like get out of temptation free card.
SPEAKER_02: He says, you know, so you may be able to endure it.
SPEAKER_02: God's faithful provision is that he gives us the ability to endure faithfully within the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: The goal was never to get Israel out of the wilderness, out of the desert.
SPEAKER_02: The goal was to bring them through the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: God's not primarily committed to making our lives easier.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sorry if I have to say it that way.
SPEAKER_02: He's committed to bringing his covenant people safely home.
SPEAKER_02: And so his faithfulness doesn't eliminate the trial, the test, the difficulty, the hardship.
SPEAKER_02: He sustains us through it.
SPEAKER_02: And as I read these words, I can't help but think of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: You know, he too passed through the waters.
SPEAKER_02: He too entered the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: He too in the wilderness was tested.
SPEAKER_02: Yet where Israel doubted the faithfulness of the Father, Jesus trusted him completely.
SPEAKER_02: Where Israel sought another way, Jesus submitted and remained faithful.
SPEAKER_02: He walked the path of covenant fidelity perfectly, and now he calls us to follow him.
SPEAKER_02: And so only now are we ready to appreciate the wisdom in Paul's warning.
SPEAKER_02: The wisest Christians aren't those who go out to prove how much temptation they can handle.
SPEAKER_02: I can do this.
SPEAKER_02: I'm some kind of super Christian.
SPEAKER_02: The wisest Christians are the ones who realize they don't need to find out.
SPEAKER_02: Their confidence never rested in themselves, they've always rested in the faithful God who rescues, provides, sustains, and delivers.
SPEAKER_02: While the warning is real, the bigger reality is this: the final word belongs to God.
SPEAKER_02: He's the one who is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: And so here in this passage, having warned us not to presume upon God's grace, Paul now moves from warning to command.
SPEAKER_02: So if the danger of spiritual drift is real, and if God is faithful, how does that show up in our lives?
SPEAKER_02: What then should we do?
SPEAKER_02: And so we get the first imperative of this chapter.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says, so in light of everything I've just said, therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, flee from idolatry.
SPEAKER_02: The word therefore matters.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's not, again, he's not introducing a new subject here.
SPEAKER_02: He's drawing a conclusion from everything he just said.
SPEAKER_02: If Israel's story teaches us anything, it's that none of us is as immune to spiritual drift as we imagine we would be.
SPEAKER_02: And because the danger is real, Paul doesn't say things like, you guys need to be careful, you know, tread lightly around idolatry.
SPEAKER_02: He says, run, run away from idolatry.
SPEAKER_02: At first it almost feels abrupt.
SPEAKER_02: You know, Paul just spent 13 verses talking about how faithful God is and how he's going to see us through.
SPEAKER_02: So why does the application suddenly become run away?
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's because people who believe they can safely linger near rival allegiances are already beginning to forget the lesson that Israel learned.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom isn't demonstrated by how close we can get to danger before we fall.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom recognizes that we're vulnerable, that our hearts are prone to wander, that we're likely to misstep.
SPEAKER_02: And so rather than test ourselves unneededly, the best thing we can do is remove ourselves from situations that are going to invite us to have divided loyalty.
SPEAKER_02: Paul doesn't stop with a command, he reasons with them.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, come on, guys, I'm talking to reasonable people here.
SPEAKER_02: Judge for yourselves.
SPEAKER_02: Listen to what I say.
SPEAKER_02: Think of this through.
SPEAKER_02: Consider what your actions actually mean.
SPEAKER_02: You see, the Corinthians question had never really been about food.
SPEAKER_02: They said, or the question was, is it permissible to eat meat sacrificed to idols?
SPEAKER_02: But all along, in these past couple chapters, Paul's answering a deeper question all along.
SPEAKER_02: The occasion was the meat, but the pastoral burden, what's really Paul needs to communicate to them is the issue is communion, fellowship.
SPEAKER_02: The issue is not dietary ethics and what should I eat and not eat?
SPEAKER_02: It's covenant fidelity.
SPEAKER_02: And so to make that point, Paul turns to the Lord's table, to what we call communion.
SPEAKER_02: He says, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not participation in the blood of Christ?
SPEAKER_02: The bread that we break, is it not participation in the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_02: That word, participation, is key to this section.
SPEAKER_02: Because when we gather at the Lord's table, we're not just remembering something that happened long ago.
SPEAKER_02: We're declaring out loud where life is found.
SPEAKER_02: Our fellowship, our identity, our hope, our future.
SPEAKER_02: It's all bound up in Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_02: This is covenant communion.
SPEAKER_02: This is what we celebrate at the Lord's table.
SPEAKER_02: That's why Paul can immediately add something like this: because there's one bread, we, who are many, are one body.
SPEAKER_02: Around one table sits one people, united to one Lord.
SPEAKER_02: The table is an expression of belonging.
SPEAKER_02: So then Paul points back to Israel and he says, they ate portions of the sacrifice, they weren't simply spectators, they weren't simply sharing a meal.
SPEAKER_02: The meal expressed fellowship with the altar.
SPEAKER_02: It declared allegiance, it proclaimed communion.
SPEAKER_02: And so it helps us to understand why Paul reacts so strongly to the Corinthians' casual attitude toward idol feasts.
SPEAKER_02: The issue isn't the meat, the issue is what sharing in the meal means.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe an illustration can help here.
SPEAKER_02: Melissa, my dear wife of 20 years.
SPEAKER_02: More than two decades ago I entered a new covenant with her, and I pledged to her my love and my devotion.
SPEAKER_02: Now, suppose I were to say to her, Melissa, you don't need to worry, but every Thursday evening I'm going to be having dinner with another woman, but it's only dinner.
SPEAKER_02: No husband or wife hears that and thinks the problem is food.
SPEAKER_02: The meal matters because of what it represents: affection, intimacy, devotion.
SPEAKER_02: The concern isn't stake, the concern is relationship.
SPEAKER_02: And that, guys, is precisely Paul's point.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord's table is the covenant meal of God's people.
SPEAKER_02: It's where we confess that our life is found in Christ alone.
SPEAKER_02: Why would those who belong to Christ willingly cultivate communion somewhere else?
SPEAKER_02: Why seek another table when all that we would ever want or need has already been given to us at his?
SPEAKER_02: So at this point, Paul anticipates the obvious objection.
SPEAKER_02: Well, he says, what do I imply then?
SPEAKER_02: That food offered to idols is anything?
SPEAKER_02: Or that an idol is anything?
SPEAKER_02: And his answer is still no.
SPEAKER_02: Paul hasn't changed his mind from chapter 8.
SPEAKER_02: An idol has no real existence.
SPEAKER_02: Meat is, as it turns out, still meat.
SPEAKER_02: So why flee?
SPEAKER_02: If idols are nothing, and what's the point?
SPEAKER_02: Because while idols themselves are nothing, idolatry is never nothing.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, not to God.
SPEAKER_02: His intention here isn't to satisfy us about our curiosity about demons.
SPEAKER_02: That's a sermon for another day.
SPEAKER_02: The concern here is practical.
SPEAKER_02: Acts of worship draw us into fellowship with the reality towards whom that worship is directed.
SPEAKER_02: There is no such thing as a spiritually neutral act of worship.
SPEAKER_02: That's why Paul says, you can't drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.
SPEAKER_02: You can't partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
SPEAKER_02: Notice he doesn't merely say that's not a good idea.
SPEAKER_02: You shouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_02: He says you cannot do that.
SPEAKER_02: Not because God created an arbitrary rule, but because covenant communion is, by definition, exclusive.
SPEAKER_02: Imagine, again, coming back to my analogy, I tried to assure Melissa and I said, but you're my wife.
SPEAKER_02: Thursday nights are simply reserved for someone else.
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't solve the problem.
SPEAKER_02: It reveals the problem.
SPEAKER_02: Marriage is an exclusive covenant.
SPEAKER_02: To come to Christ's table is to declare that He alone is Lord, our life, our covenant King.
SPEAKER_02: To willingly sit at another religious table contradicts the relationship that the Lord's table is designed to proclaim.
SPEAKER_02: That's why Paul says, should we provoke the Lord to jealousy?
SPEAKER_02: Now, God's jealousy isn't the petty, insecure possessiveness we think of when we talk about jealousy.
SPEAKER_02: It's the jealousy of covenant love, the jealousy of a faithful husband who's given himself wholly to his bride and rightly desires her exclusive love in return.
SPEAKER_02: God's jealousy is an expression of his love because he's protecting that relationship that he knows gives people life.
SPEAKER_02: And when you think about it in this context, now suddenly Paul's command to flee idolatry no longer sounds restrictive.
SPEAKER_02: It sounds loving.
SPEAKER_02: He's not trying to keep the Corinthians from enjoying meat.
SPEAKER_02: We had a men's barbecue last night and we enjoyed some meat.
SPEAKER_02: He's keeping them from wandering away from the one in whom life is found.
SPEAKER_02: Fleeing idolatry is not primarily about avoiding sin, it's about guarding communion.
SPEAKER_02: And if Israel's taught us anything, it's the surest way to remain faithful is not to discover how close we can get to another table before we stumble, it's to remain joyfully seated at the table where life has always been found.
SPEAKER_02: But Paul's not finished yet.
SPEAKER_02: Having shown us what exclusive devotion to Christ looks like, he now asks an intensely practical question.
SPEAKER_02: How does all of this shape the ordinary decisions of everyday life?
SPEAKER_02: Remember, if the issue here was just, you know, idol feasts and meat sacrifice to idols, this could have been a very short and easy message.
SPEAKER_02: What I love about Paul is he never leaves his theology floating in the clouds.
SPEAKER_02: He always brings it down to street level and he makes it practical.
SPEAKER_02: And so someone in the Corinthian church could very naturally ask a question like, okay, Paul, like this sounds great, but what does that look like tomorrow morning?
SPEAKER_02: And his answer is fascinating because he doesn't begin by giving another rule.
SPEAKER_02: He just changes the question.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, the Corinthians had been fixated on this question of the boundaries of Christian freedom.
SPEAKER_02: We saw this a couple chapters ago.
SPEAKER_02: You know, they would say things like, Is this permissible?
SPEAKER_02: Can I eat this?
SPEAKER_02: Can I go to the banquet?
SPEAKER_02: Where's the line?
SPEAKER_02: Um I can I can do everything, right?
SPEAKER_02: Paul doesn't deny that Christian freedom is real.
SPEAKER_02: He quotes their own slogan back to them.
SPEAKER_02: All things are lawful.
SPEAKER_02: But then he asks a better question.
SPEAKER_02: He says, I'm paraphrasing, yeah, all things are legal, but are all things beneficial?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, maybe all things are lawful, but do all things build up?
SPEAKER_02: See, now the conversation has shifted from permission, can I, to wisdom, should I?
SPEAKER_02: A mature Christian doesn't simply ask, what am I free to do?
SPEAKER_02: A mature Christian asks, what is the loving thing to do?
SPEAKER_02: See, for many of us, Christianity has been reduced to trying to determine where the line is.
SPEAKER_02: Just tell me what's allowed, tell me what's forbidden.
SPEAKER_02: Paul is not merely trying to produce people who know the rules.
SPEAKER_02: He's not interested in mere behavior modification.
SPEAKER_02: He's trying to form people who have learned what it means to love well.
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's been his burden throughout all these chapters.
SPEAKER_02: Going back to chapter 8, when the Corinthians pointed to their knowledge, Paul reminded them, yeah, knowledge is good, but knowledge kind of puffs you up.
SPEAKER_02: It gives you, you know, you start to feel really big and important.
SPEAKER_02: You know.
SPEAKER_02: Love builds up.
SPEAKER_02: In chapter 9, they insist on their own rights, and Paul points to his own willingness to surrender legitimate rights for the sake of others and for the sake of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Now he gathers all those threads into one principle, and he says, Let no one seek his own good but the good of his neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: And there it is.
SPEAKER_02: Freedom in Christ was never given so we could finally put ourselves first.
SPEAKER_02: It was given so we might finally be free to put others first.
SPEAKER_02: Paul goes on to bring us into an ordinary Corinthian scene.
SPEAKER_02: How do we make this practical?
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's say an unbelieving neighbor invites you to dinner.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, that's nice.
SPEAKER_02: I like dinner.
SPEAKER_02: You accept.
SPEAKER_02: You go to their house, the meal is placed before you.
SPEAKER_02: What do you do?
SPEAKER_02: Paul says, eat.
SPEAKER_02: Eat whatever is set before you without raising questions of conscience.
SPEAKER_02: Don't interrogate your host.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, where'd you get this?
SPEAKER_02: Is this free range?
SPEAKER_02: Is this non-GMO?
SPEAKER_02: Is this organic?
SPEAKER_02: Don't trace the origin of every piece of meat.
SPEAKER_02: Don't become so anxious about ceremonial questions and purity and what if I accidentally that you lose sight of the person who's sitting right across from you.
SPEAKER_02: Receive the meal with gratitude.
SPEAKER_02: Enjoy the fellowship.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's not calling Christians to withdraw from the world.
SPEAKER_02: He expects us to be present in the lives of people who don't yet know Christ.
SPEAKER_02: God's creation isn't the problem.
SPEAKER_02: But, and Paul changes one detail: say you're, you know, all these things have happened, you're sitting there, it looks delicious, you cut your steak, you're about to take that first bite, and then the guy says, This meat has been offered in sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: Everything changes at that point.
SPEAKER_02: Not because the meat changed, it's still a delicious piece of steak, but the meaning has changed.
SPEAKER_02: Because now your participation in that meal communicates something.
SPEAKER_02: Another person's understanding of Christ is under the equation.
SPEAKER_02: And so now love asks a different question, not what am I free to do, but what will best serve that person sitting across from me at this table?
SPEAKER_02: And that's why Paul says, don't eat it for conscience' sake.
SPEAKER_02: But then he adds, not your conscience, his conscience.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's not asking the Christian to abstain because the meat has suddenly become sinful.
SPEAKER_02: He's inviting him to limit a legitimate freedom for the sake of someone else.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because love values people more than it values rights.
SPEAKER_02: So do you see what do you see what Paul's doing here?
SPEAKER_02: Freedom is no longer about me protecting my rights.
SPEAKER_02: I have the right to do this, I have the right to do that.
SPEAKER_02: Freedom has now become the opportunity to seek someone else's good.
SPEAKER_02: And so that's why Paul says, whether you eat, whether you don't eat, whether you drink, whether you don't drink, whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_02: And we often quote that verse in isolation as though it means we should just honor God in everything we do.
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, that's true, but I think in context, Paul's point here is much, much richer.
SPEAKER_02: To glorify God is to live so that other people can see something of his character through us.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes that means exercising our freedom.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it means gladly surrendering it.
SPEAKER_02: In either case, the question is always this: will this help someone else see the beauty of Christ?
SPEAKER_02: Paul says he seeks to please everyone and everything, not seeking his own advantage, but that of many so that they might be saved.
SPEAKER_02: He's not becoming a people pleaser, he's becoming a gospel servant.
SPEAKER_02: He gladly lays aside preferences whenever doing so might help someone get one step closer to knowing Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And all that brings us to a final destination.
SPEAKER_02: Our English Bibles place a chapter break between 1033 and 11.1, so we naturally think that Paul's starting a new subject.
SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, Paul didn't write chapter and verse divisions.
SPEAKER_02: They were added centuries later to help us navigate in the Bible, and for that I'm really helpful.
SPEAKER_02: But sometimes that they obscure the author's flow.
SPEAKER_02: And I think this is one of these places.
SPEAKER_02: Because if you read it by itself, be imitators of me as I am of Christ, it feels kind of abrupt of like, what's that there for?
SPEAKER_02: What does this have to do with meat sacrificed to idols?
SPEAKER_02: What does this have to do with Israel in the wilderness?
SPEAKER_02: What does this have to do with the Lord's table or Christian freedom?
SPEAKER_02: I'd say at first glance, not very much.
SPEAKER_02: But when we read it as the Corinthians first heard it, um, as one continuous letter, it becomes clear that this is not the beginning of a new idea.
SPEAKER_02: This is the conclusion that ever that Paul has been building up to for the past for the past three chapters.
SPEAKER_02: The Corinthians wanted an answer to a simple question Can Christians eat meat sacrificed to idols?
SPEAKER_02: Paul could have answered that in a paragraph.
SPEAKER_02: Instead, he spent three Three chapters reshaping how they thought.
SPEAKER_02: Why would you do that?
SPEAKER_02: Why not just say no or yes and then let's move on?
SPEAKER_02: Because a good pastor understands that the presenting question is rarely the real question.
SPEAKER_02: The occasion was meat, but the burden was discipleship.
SPEAKER_02: The occasion was this question of food, but the burden was really spiritual formation.
SPEAKER_02: The occasion was liberty.
SPEAKER_02: What can I do?
SPEAKER_02: What can I not do?
SPEAKER_02: The burden was learning.
SPEAKER_02: What does it mean to live as the people of God?
SPEAKER_02: So Paul's not merely here correcting behavior.
SPEAKER_02: He's in all this, he's been working on shaping a people.
SPEAKER_02: He's showing them that spiritual maturity is not measured by how much freedom we possess, but how we faithfully trust in the covenant Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And so here, Paul tells us where all this has been leading.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Imitate me as I imitate Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And that's it, the destination.
SPEAKER_02: Paul was never merely trying to help the Corinthians become better decision makers.
SPEAKER_02: He was trying to help them become a different kind of people.
SPEAKER_02: People whose lives continuously look more and more like Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And when we step back and look at these chapters together, it becomes almost impossible to miss.
SPEAKER_02: Who refused to seek his own advantage but gave himself for the salvation of many?
SPEAKER_02: Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Who possessed all knowledge yet made love the priority?
SPEAKER_02: Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Who willingly laid aside his rights and suffered for the good of others?
SPEAKER_02: Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Who remained faithful to the Father when tested in the wilderness?
SPEAKER_02: Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Who perfectly loved his neighbor?
SPEAKER_02: Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 10, what Paul's been doing here all along, he's been painting a point, a portrait for us.
SPEAKER_02: Stroke by stroke, line by line, without drawing attention to it, he's been sketching the character of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And it's only here in 11.1 that he steps back from the canvas and says, That's the picture.
SPEAKER_02: Follow him.
SPEAKER_02: And that changes everything.
SPEAKER_02: Because the goal of the Christian life, brothers and sisters, is not merely to avoid idolatry, not about exercising freedom wisely, not about making better moral choices.
SPEAKER_02: The goal is Christ-likeness.
SPEAKER_02: Paul wants the Corinthian church to become people who instinctively think, love, trust, worship, live like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why you can say, imitate me.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's not the destination.
SPEAKER_02: He's a fellow disciple saying, walk behind me, because I am learning to walk behind him.
SPEAKER_02: And isn't that what discipleship's always been?
SPEAKER_02: It isn't merely learning what Jesus taught, learning to live as Jesus lived, or perhaps being a little bit better.
SPEAKER_02: It's learning to become the kind of human, the kind of person that Jesus was.
SPEAKER_02: From the very beginning of creation, God created humanity to bear his image into the world.
SPEAKER_02: Sin profoundly distorted that vocation.
SPEAKER_02: We began looking for life apart from the God who is life himself.
SPEAKER_02: We trusted our own wisdom and sought blessing on our own terms.
SPEAKER_02: But then came Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Not merely to forgive our sins, as glorious and important as that is, but also to reveal and restore humanity, the humanity God intended from the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: And he's still loving, he's still forming a people who are designed to better reflect the likeness of his son.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why this section ends where it does, not with a rule, not with a warning, but with an invitation.
SPEAKER_02: Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: So, in conclusion, where does that leave us?
SPEAKER_02: So perhaps the question this morning isn't like, what are the idols in my life?
SPEAKER_02: That's too easy.
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps the better question is, where am I struggling to trust the faithful God?
SPEAKER_02: Where have I been begun believing that his timing isn't good enough?
SPEAKER_02: That his ways aren't wise enough, or his present isn't sufficient for me?
SPEAKER_02: Where have I taken matters into my own hands because he doesn't seem to be working the way I think he should be working, or according to my timetable?
SPEAKER_02: Or perhaps another question is, where am I looking for life apart from Christ?
SPEAKER_02: What table am I turning to, if not the Lord's table?
SPEAKER_02: Is it success, comfort, control, money, reputation, approval, relationship, sex, alcohol, drugs, could even be ministry.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever we repeatedly turn to in an attempt to find meaning, security, identity, satisfaction, or life apart from Christ has quietly become another table.
SPEAKER_02: The issue isn't the thing.
SPEAKER_02: The issue is where we believe life is found.
SPEAKER_02: And then maybe for us, the final question we want to ask ourselves: am I becoming more like Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Not simply do I know more?
SPEAKER_02: Not simply am I avoiding certain sins, but is the shape of my life increasingly taking the shape of his life?
SPEAKER_02: Because that's where this entire passage has been leading us.
SPEAKER_02: Not merely away from idolatry, but toward Christ.
SPEAKER_02: So, for those of us who have covenanted to follow Jesus, don't leave this place merely determined to avoid idolatry.
SPEAKER_02: You know, as you reflect on our time together today, leave determined to trust Christ more deeply, to guard your communion with him more carefully, to love others more sacrificially, and by his grace to become a little more like Jesus this week than you were last week.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you're in this room and you don't yet call yourself a follower of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: You're curious, he seems interesting to you, and you're wondering, what does this all have to do with me?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I would say that these words are for you as well.
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps you've spent a lot of your life searching, moving from table to table in search of meaning, security, identity, satisfaction, and you're frustrated.
SPEAKER_02: You've discovered that none of those tables can bear the weight of what your soul's actually looking for.
SPEAKER_02: Well, the invitation of the gospel to you is wonderfully simple.
SPEAKER_02: Just come to Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Not because he gives life, but because he is life.
SPEAKER_02: The faithful God who rescued Israel, who patiently pursued his people, who gave his son, now invites you to enter into a covenant with himself.
SPEAKER_02: Not because you've earned it, but because he loves you.
SPEAKER_02: And when you entrust yourself to him, he doesn't merely forgive your sins, he begins forming you into the person you were created to be.
SPEAKER_02: So here, Paul's final words one more time as we close.
SPEAKER_02: Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Because that's God's purpose for you all along.
SPEAKER_02: Not simply to rescue a people from sin, but to restore a people and to form them into the image of his son.
SPEAKER_02: And that, brothers and sisters, is the life for which each of us has been created.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_02: We thank you for these reminders.
SPEAKER_02: We thank you for the nation of Israel and how we can learn from their experience.
SPEAKER_02: We're very much aware, Lord, of our temptation to trust ourselves maybe a bit too much, to put our focus on the wrong things, to think we stand when we know we're we're weak.
SPEAKER_02: And so, Lord, we turn to you, recognizing that the ability is not in us, but it's in you.
SPEAKER_02: That from the beginning of our story to the end, Lord, you remain faithful.
SPEAKER_02: And part of that faithfulness, Lord, is allowing us to experience trials, tests, tribulations, hardship.
SPEAKER_02: We would pray, Lord, that for each of us, that as those circumstances come into our lives, maybe even now we're in the midst of difficult circumstances, that we would just learn what it means to trust you, to obey you, to understand that it's not necessarily in us, but it's all about you.
SPEAKER_02: You've promised us, Lord, that you who've begun a good work in us will complete it.
SPEAKER_02: You've promised us that you are at work in us not just to will, but to also do your good your good pleasure.
SPEAKER_02: And so, Lord, I pray you would just help us to trust you and your faithfulness more.
SPEAKER_02: I pray, Lord, that as we desire to represent you well, as we make decisions about where we go and what we do and how we interact, that the governing principle of our of our lives would be the love of others.
SPEAKER_02: That we would not cling so tightly to our rights and what we're entitled to do, Lord, but you know, following the example of your son, that we would be willing to put aside our rights, our privileges for the sake of others.
SPEAKER_02: That in all of our comings and all of our goings, that we would seek to love well.
SPEAKER_02: And Lord, it's it's all about Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: As we think about the work that you're doing in our lives, you know, he has come to save us, and for that we're eternally grateful, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: But he's also called to model for us what does it mean?
SPEAKER_02: And it it was he who came from heaven to earth to live that perfect life.
SPEAKER_02: And it was he who went through the grave and out the other side and who calls us to follow him.
SPEAKER_02: And so I pray, Lord, that as we go, that you would continue to be at work molding us and shaping us into the conformity of the image of your Son, that as people encounter us, that they would look upon us and see him, that we would come to be people who are characterized by love and kindness, compassion, mercy, so that we would truly inhabit what it means to be human, that we would truly inhabit what it means to be the body of Christ, that as you're seeking to reconcile the world to yourself, that we would be part of that, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And so I pray, Lord, for my dear brothers and sisters today that you would speak to them by your Spirit and you would lead them in the way that they would go.
SPEAKER_02: We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening to the Sermon Podcast for Mission Hills Church in San Marcos, California.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that this message blesses you as you love God and love others.
SPEAKER_01: If you would like more information about our church, please visit us at missionhillschurch.org.
SPEAKER_01: God bless.