Love is Greater Than Knowledge

When we read Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, we see a church whose attitudes and actions are sometimes indistinguishable from the Roman culture around them. The church in Corinth is messy and divided, but it belongs to God. The letter of 1 Corinthians shows us a beautiful picture of how the gospel can bring transformation and renewal to every area of life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning everyone. So this last week we went from a blizzard to 75 degrees in the span of six days, which is kind of awesome and also really lame at the same time. I wish we could have just skipped the blizzard thing and went right to the 75 degree thing. Uh but here we are. We choose to live here. We have no one to blame but ourselves. If I have not yet had the chance to meet you, my name is John, and I get to serve as the lead pastor here at Elmwood. Before we get into the message this morning, I want to say uh briefly to the college students, this section, this gaggle right over here, uh today is our next college lunch, which means that right after the service we are going to uh be eating lunch together. And uh whether you RSVP'd for that or not, uh I don't really care. I just want you to come eat lunch with us. And uh we really hope in that time that we get to uh get to know you. And also we want to pick your brain and ask you some questions about ways that uh Elmwood can better serve and invest in college students. So if you are here today and you are of college age, if you are even uh within like maybe you graduated within a year or so, you can still come eat lunch with us. If you are uh going into college this next year, please come eat lunch with us. Uh we're gonna leave some time right after the service for you to just kind of mingle for a little bit and then right at noon, we're gonna head down into the conference room where we've got some food waiting, and we're gonna have a time to connect there. So uh please make sure that you join us if you are a college-ish aged person. With that, let me invite you to join me in a word of prayer. God, we adore you as we have sung this morning already. We adore you because you are the God of glory and you are the Lord of life. Today we ask that you would open our hearts like a flower, that they would unfold before you to receive the wonderful nutrients that you have waiting for us in your word. So, God, we look to you to teach us and to instruct us and to help change not just our behavior, but to help change our hearts and to help lead us into a life of following Jesus. And so, Holy Spirit, we ask you to be present among us in a special way and to minister to us in a powerful way this morning. We look to you for all these things. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Well, we have been in a series of messages in the book of First Corinthians, and today we're entering a new section of this letter. Uh, as you would expect, a letter that is 16 chapters long, that takes uh quite a while to read if you just sit down and do it, is gonna have different parts that are focused on different things and different subjects and different things that uh Paul addresses, and that is exactly what we see here today. We see in verse one where Paul says, Now about food sacrifice to idols, which uh on the surface feels like maybe the most irrelevant thing in the world for us to be thinking about. And uh I promise as we go through this and through the rest of this section that we're gonna see that this is actually uh a very relevant thing for us. So uh when he says, now about food sacrifice to idols, that is uh indicating to us as readers and to his original listeners that there's a shift in the subject. And so in chapters 8 through 10, this is one long section where he makes one sustained argument as to why these Corinthian believers cannot and must not participate in idol feasts or participate in food that has been sacrificed to idols. So uh let me just sketch very briefly for you how this section of the letter is arranged, because I think that'll help us give uh provide something of a roadmap in the weeks to come. So this section begins and ends with him talking about these idol feasts, and so we know that that's the main subject because it forms this sort of uh chiasm or forms a sandwich. And then in this part of the letter, he's uh he's trying to persuade them not to participate in these, and he does so uh in a couple different ways. So in chapter 10, he sort of drops the hammer on them. He's very direct, he's very clear that you must not participate in these idol feasts, and the reason is because when you do so, you are participating in idolatry, and so you cannot do it. You must not participate. But here at the beginning, he doesn't start by going right at their throats. He starts this in a far more pastoral and sort of uh gentle way, and he draws attention and says, You can't participate in these idle feasts, because in doing so you are destroying those for whom Christ died. So he gives those two sort of main reasons as to why they can't not and should not participate in these idle feasts, and then sandwiched in the middle in chapter nine is he talks about his own life and gives his own life as an example of self-giving love. And he says, Unlike you, Corinthians, I will do anything so as to not be a stumbling block to those who are followers of Jesus. I'll do anything to get out of the way so that other people can come to know and experience and follow Jesus. So the highest level, that's sort of what this section of the letter is about. And what I want to do now is look specifically at what he says in chapter 8, verses 1 through 13. So as we look at these verses, the first thing that we see here is we see the misguided reason for participating in idol feasts. He tells us the misguided reason why these Corinthian believers are participating in these idol feasts in the first place. So, to make sense of this section, we have to sort of sketch a picture of the religious culture of Corinth, as well as what even happened at these idol feasts in the first place. So Corinth, we know, was a very spiritually diverse place, and in part that's because it was a port city. And because it was a port city, it was a cosmopolitan, metropolitan area where people were coming in and out of the city, and lots of people were coming and going, and lots of people were coming and staying. And when people came from all over the known world at the time, they brought their religion with them, and they brought their religious practices with them, and as a result of that, it became this sort of spiritually diverse place, and it was actually known for having temples and having shrines to the various gods on almost every street corner. So this was just built into the fabric of life in the city of Corinth. And remember that many of those who are recipients of this letter, many of the people who came to know and follow Jesus, who are now a part of the Corinthian church, were Gentiles, meaning they didn't grow up Jewish, and they came out of these pagan religious practices. Now, when I say pagan, uh please don't hear that as like a uh you know condescending or like a pejorative term. That just means not Jewish. Okay? So some of these Corinthians did not grow up Jewish, came to follow Jesus, and so this is the world that they came out of. This is the religious air that they breathed in their former way of life before meeting Jesus. So, what was it that actually happened at these idol feasts? Well, uh many of these pagan temples that were scattered throughout the city of Corinth had uh they had banquet halls and they had meeting rooms where people would meet for uh various activities. And in some ways, these temples and these meeting rooms functioned sort of like a community center where you could reserve a room. You could reserve a room for this occasion or for that occasion, you could reserve the banquet hall. And so it functioned somewhat like a community center, but a part of each of those gatherings that took place inside of that temple was the eating of a meal that consisted of food sacrificed to the god of that temple. So, for example, if you went and had a gathering in the meeting hall of the god Artemis, for example, uh part of that you would go in and they would offer a sacrifice of meat to the god Artemis, and then those who were there for that meal or for that gathering would all partake of that meat that was just sacrificed to that god, and if there was any meat left over, it would go to the market to be sold at a later time. So that's what happened at these idol feasts. And another aspect of them that is equally as troubling is that these idol feasts and these celebrations that took place in these temples were known as being a place where people would drink too much and make bad choices. Okay, so very often, sexual immorality and prostitution and all sorts of things that people wouldn't do if they hadn't been drinking a lot, all these things were now present, and this was just, they were known for being wild places where people would do things that they might not do otherwise in their right mind. And so it's not just that some of these Corinthians are participating in idolatry, which is bad enough in and of itself, it's that they're also participating in the sexual immorality and other kinds of things that so often accompanied those idols and idol feasts that took place in those temples. So, why were some of these Corinthians participating in these idol feasts? If that's what was happening, you're like, well, why would you participate in that? Well, the Corinthians are participating in this from their perspective because they think they are very spiritually enlightened. In verse 1, Paul quotes their own slogan. The Corinthians are saying, We all possess knowledge. And the knowledge that they are claiming to have and live by is found in verse 4, where Paul again quotes them as saying, We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. So what's happening is they are saying, okay, these idols, these are nothing. We worship the supreme king of kings and lord of lords, and compared to him, these idols are nothing. And so therefore, it doesn't matter if we participate in these idol feasts, it's just food that's sacrificed to a so-called God. And that was their perspective. And while technically they are correct, they are completely wrong in how they are applying what they know. They're completely wrong in how they're living in light of what they know to be true about the supremacy and the oneness of God. So they're participating in these idol feasts because they think that spirit-given wisdom and spirit-given maturity allows for it. But Paul sees it very differently. And we can tell that by looking at what he says in this section. He says that they are participating in these idol feasts from an overinflated sense of their own spiritual maturity. They're saying, we all possess knowledge. But listen to what Paul says in verse 2. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. You think you're way smarter than you actually are. You think you possess this knowledge when really what you possess is quote-unquote knowledge. What you possess is so-called knowledge. And the reason Paul can call this, even this knowledge of the nature and the character of God, he can call this so-called knowledge because they are willing to wield this knowledge in a way that damages their own brothers and sisters in Christ. And that is why Paul can say, This knowledge that you possess is not actually knowledge given to you by God the Spirit, because the result of it is that it is damaging your brothers and sisters in the Lord. So some of these Corinthians are participating in the idolatry of their old way of life. And in doing so, they are destroying the body for whom Christ died. And so this is the next thing that we see. We see the misguided reason for participating in these idol feasts, this special knowledge that they have. But then the second thing we see here is the disastrous result of it. The disastrous result of participating in these idol feasts. Listen to what he says in verses 9 through 11. He says, Be careful that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you with all your knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister for whom Christ died is destroyed by your knowledge. Now, there's uh we gotta spend some time untangling what's here because uh this is often misunderstood. There's lots of uh scholarly sort of uh debate about you know what's what's here and what this means. Uh in fact, until I put my head in the sand and actually spent uh quite a bit of time in this passage, I misunderstood what this was saying. So I have always thought that what Paul is talking about here is people who are easily offended when others exercise their freedom in Christ. You know? I always thought this was like, okay, there's a person who's a follower of Jesus who thinks it's okay to consume alcohol, and there's another person who thinks that categorically a Christian should never drink alcohol, and this person is offended when they see this person consuming alcohol, even in moderation. That's not what this passage is talking about. That's not the kind of thing that he's talking about. Some of these Corinthians are participating in things that Paul says they categorically and by definition should not be participating in. So we're gonna get into this in chapter 10. But Paul in chapter 10 does not mince words with them. When he says that when you participate in these idle feasts and you partake of this food that has been offered to these pagan gods, you are participating in demonic spiritual activity. Okay, so this is not a case of these believers exercising their legitimate freedom in Christ. He's very clear that a person cannot participate in these things without also participating in the idolatry of it. So they're not participating in something for which there's legitimate freedom in Christ, they're actively engaging in idolatry, and they're wounding other people in the process. We should not equate those who have a weak conscience with those who are easily offended. I don't think that there should be an equal sign between those two things. Again, this is one of those areas where scholars debate about, well, what does it, what does it mean that they have a weak conscience? And there's lots of sort of debate about this. But I think the idea behind having a weak conscience is that these followers of Jesus are impressionable. These followers of Jesus are like soft clay. If you've ever spent time touching soft clay, you know that you just barely touch it and you leave a fingerprint on it. It's very easy to mold, it's very easy to shape because of how soft it is. And so, yes, these Christians are less mature. Yes, they are not as mature in the Lord, and therefore they're easily influenced to follow the practices of these other believers in Corinth who are participating in these idol feasts. And Paul says this is serious business. This is serious business, he says. In verses nine to thirteen, Paul uses two phrases that uh that parallel one another. So in verse nine, he says, Be careful that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. And then in verse 13, he says, If what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall. So those two phrases uh becoming a stumbling block to the weak and causing them to fall, those phrases parallel one another. And the word that's used here for cause them to fall is the Greek word scandalizo, which is the word from which we get our English word, scandalize. And this is the same word that Jesus used in Mark chapter 9. Listen to what Jesus says, where he speaks uh very directly to his disciples, and he said, If anyone causes one of these little ones, those who believe in me to stumble, that's the same word that Paul uses here for uh cause them to fall or to trip them up, to scandalize them. He says, If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it will be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. So Jesus is very clear. It is better to be chained to a boulder and pushed off a dock than to cause someone else to sin, to lead someone else into sin, to lead someone else away from Christ. But that's not all. He says the disastrous result of them participating in these idol feasts is that their brothers and sisters will be emboldened to join them in their idolatry, will be emboldened to participate in these idle feasts, and they will be destroyed, he says. Again, he does not say that the disastrous result is that they will be offended or that they will become upset at you for participating in this. He says they will be destroyed. And this is the same word that Paul uses in other places to talk about being destroyed in the final judgment. So this is serious stuff that Paul is talking about here. And he is he's appealing to them, saying, Don't you know what it is that you're doing to your brothers and sisters? He's gonna drop the hammer on them more directly later. But here, he appeals to their brothers and sisters and says, Don't you understand what you're doing to them? I think that what Paul's putting his finger on here is their self-centered way of living. These believers, they are supposed to use their spiritual gifts in a way that builds people up in Christ. That's the whole point of spiritual gifts, and we'll see that in chapter 12. They're supposed to be using these spiritual gifts for the building up of the body to lead people to maturity in Christ, and instead they're using their gifts in a way that does the exact opposite, that destroys them, that leads them away from Christ, that leads them into sin. And so it's this self-centeredness, this spiritual arrogance, this overinflated view of their own maturity that is what Paul's putting his finger on. And he's he's he's poking into this. The last thing we see here today is uh Paul offering a remedy for us. We see the gospel remedy to self-centered living. So we've told us about the misguided reason for them participating in these idol feasts, the disastrous result of it, and now we see the gospel remedy to this self-centered living. His Paul's ultimate appeal to these believers in Corinth who were going to these idol feasts, his ultimate appeal is not to their brothers and sisters. So he's not saying, look at what you're doing to these people. You should feel terrible and you should stop it. Now, to be clear, they should feel terrible and they should stop it. Okay? But he does not begin or ground his, uh ground what he wants for them in them feeling bad that they're hurting someone else. He grounds this in the story of the gospel. He points them to who God is and what God has done for them, and it's that message that when internalized is going to fundamentally reorder the way that they live and Interact with their brothers and sisters. So, what will remedy their lack of concern for them is seeing themselves in the gospel story, is seeing themselves from the right perspective. In verse 6, listen to what Paul says. He says, Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live. And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. So he points them to God. And this is where the gospel story begins. It doesn't begin with us, it begins with God. And he points them to God and says, He is the creator and he is the sustainer of all things. He is the one through whom all things were made, and not only were we created by him, we were also created for him. We were designed for him. We were meant to live life in his direction. We were designed to experience communion and fellowship and intimacy with God. We were designed to live every part of our lives as a glad response to his gracious provision and his love and his kindness and his mercy towards us. That's how we were designed to live, but the Bible says that we have sinned against him. And one of the categories that the Bible uses so often for sin is the category of idolatry. The Bible says that both by nature, meaning we can't help but do it, and by choice, meaning we do it because we want to do it, both by nature and by choice, we look to the creation to be for us, but only the creator can be. We give other things a godlike place in our lives. And this is at the heart of what the Bible calls idolatry. See, here in the West, we think, oh, idolatry is you have a temple or you have a shrine and you bow down to these little statues or you light incense at an altar. It's not what idolatry is. That's the way it expressed itself in their context. But what the Bible says, idolatry is, is when we give our hearts and our affections to other things and look to them to be for us what only God can be. That's what idolatry is. And so for us, we can be deceived into thinking, well, I don't have an idolatry problem because I don't have any statues that I bow down to. And Paul would say, What is your heart treasure? Because when we treasure and magnify things like approval and success and accomplishments and achievements, and money and possessions and experiences and safety and comfort and security and all these good things that God has given us, when we look to those good things to be for us what only God can be, we have committed idolatry. It looks very different in our modern context. But the Bible's clear that idolatry was not an ancient world problem, idolatry is a today problem. Notice what Paul does here. He points us to the God of creation, the one who spoke the universe into existence. The one who rightly deserves our worship. The one before whom we stand guilty. He points them to this God and says, This is the God by whom you are known. Now he's not talking about just a, you know, God merely knows where you are or he knows that you exist. When he says that we are known by God, what he's talking about is a deep, relational and intimate and covenantal kind of knowing. He says, you are known by God. We talk all the time about knowing God and knowing Jesus. And the gospel story also says, we are known by him. And Paul here is saying to these Corinthians, he's saying, Some of you Corinthians are obsessed with the wrong kind of knowledge. He says in verse 3, but those who love, whoever loves God is known by God. He says, you guys are focused, you're obsessing over the wrong kind of knowledge altogether. You're obsessed with what you know. And the result of it is that you're spiritually arrogant and you're damaging other people who are followers of Jesus. You're obsessed with what you know when rather you ought to be obsessed with the fact that you are known by God. You are known by Him. And this is at the heart of this gospel story. At the heart of the gospel story is a God who loves us in spite of our sin and in spite of our idolatry. In Jesus, God took on human flesh. He joined us in the brokenness of our world and yet remained without sin. He went to the cross and he laid down his life for his brothers and sisters. Which is the exact opposite of what it seems like the Corinthians are doing. He accomplished our ultimate good by giving himself for us in an act of self-giving love. This is at the heart of the gospel story. And when this gospel story gets worked into the crevices of our hearts, and when it gets worked into every part of our lives, we are going to be characterized as people who are known by self-giving love for one another. Because that's precisely what God has done for us. And so how can we use our knowledge or use our spiritual gifts or do anything that would damage or hurt our brothers and sisters? God has given Himself and has loved us. And so therefore we do everything we can to love and to build up those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the remedy that Paul points to for the kind of self-centered living that's going on with some of these in the church in Corinth. They need a heavy dose of the gospel story. They need a heavy dose of remembering who they are. Yes, they are idolaters, and yet God has, in an act of self-giving love, rescued them, and that self-giving love ought to be reflected in the way that they live and the way they interact with each other. They need a heavy dose of this gospel story, and so do we. That the Corinthians are involved in. It's very easy. I don't know if you find this to be true, but I often find myself very quick to criticize and look down on the Corinthians because of how messed up they are. And to be clear, they're messed up in lots of ways. But they're not more messed up than we are. They're not more messed up than I am. It's just that their sin and their idolatry is expressing itself in a very different way in their context than it is in our context. But each one of us is someone who needs the grace and the mercy of God. And we reveal ourselves to be just as spiritually arrogant as they are when we think otherwise. When we think that we are better than the Corinthians, because man, I would never do something like that. I'm not capable of this thing or I'm not capable of that thing. When we have those thoughts, we demonstrate that we are just as spiritually arrogant as they are. The good news is that if his grace was good enough for them, if his grace was enough even for them, it's enough even for people like us too. The Corinthians, we can remember, were not saved because of good works that they had done. They weren't saved because they did enough, or they cleaned themselves up, or they made made a you know a pinky swear triple promise that they were going to do the right thing. They were saved because of God's grace alone, and the same thing is true of us. His grace was enough for them, and his grace is also enough for us as well. And so today we get to come to the communion table and be reminded of this gospel story. And it's amazing to think about, isn't it? We'll get in later in chapter 11, where Paul talks about them taking communion together. And to think about we're a part of the same story that they were. That when they participated in the communion table together, they participated in the same exact thing that we get to participate in too. Today we are reminded of this gospel story and that through God's grace we get to be a part of it. And so if you're here today and you are in need of God's reassuring grace, maybe because of ways that you have failed or ways that you see more of yourself in the Corinthians than you would like to, come to the communion table and be reminded of what God has done for you. And if you're here today and you have not yet received or experienced his saving grace, why not make today the day that you get to experience that? As we come to the table, let me invite you to take a few moments for silence and confession, and then we will come remember Christ together.