2/2/25 1 Cor. 8:1-13 “Using You Greatest Gift!”

30 Jan 2/2/25 1 Cor. 8:1-13 “Using You Greatest Gift!”

2/2/25   1 Cor. 8:1-13      “Using You Greatest Gift!”

I think that all of us have some degree of pressure on us for various reasons.  The bank will sometimes put a little pressure on us if we are late with a payment.  Some of us may have made a promise to someone and the forgot all about it until it was time to do what ever we promised.  Sometimes we are under pressure because there is a big old rain cloud coming and we want to finish the field.  James Davis tells of how recently, in the Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyer’s Journal, there were various lists of questions that lawyers have been known to ask in court. Here are some of the questions:  Question: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?  Answer: No.  Question: Did you check for blood pressure?  Answer: No.  Question: Did you check for breathing?  Answer: No   Question: Then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?  Answer: No   Question: How can you be sure doctor?  Answer: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.  Question: But couldn’t the patient have been alive nevertheless?  Answer: It is possible that the patient could still have been alive and practicing law somewhere.  Just as the body without the brain is dead, faith without is works is dead and vice versa.  We are going to learn that this is not always true when you are dealing with false gods.  With them, no matter how much you have faith and works in them, it will not be enough.  Today, we are going to look at this reading from Paul and find out if all these false idols mean anything.

I think that many times we make doctors out to be a little bit more important than life itself.  But they have pressure also as we can see by this story.  A fella walked into a doctor’s office and the receptionist asked him what he had. “Shingles,” he said.  So, she took down his name, address and medical insurance number and told him to have a seat.  Fifteen minutes later a nurse’s aide came out and asked him what he had. “Shingles,” he said.  So, she took down his height, weight, complete medical history and told him to wait in the examining room.  A half-hour later a nurse came in and asked him what he had. “Shingles,” he said.  So, she gave him a blood test, a blood pressure test and an electrocardiogram. Then she told him to take off all his clothes and wait for the doctor.  An hour later the doctor came in and asked him what he had. “Shingles,” he said. The doctor said, “Where?”  He said, “Outside in the truck. Where do you want them?”  This is very similar to what Paul is referring to here.  Eating the food left for idols.

As we begin, I would like you to notice how Paul actually jumps around a little but he will end up tying everything together.  His first sentence tells us that they know about food sacrificed to the idols.  This seems to come out of nowhere.  But is he really talking about food or is it something else?  I think that he is talking a little bit about both.  Let’s see.

He begins again by saying that we all have knowledge.  A person does not get to live long without a little knowledge.  Knowledge is what we learn as we move along in life.  We have knowledge that we are doing our job right in the world.  We also gather knowledge as we go to school at various levels.  This is not to be confused with wisdom.  Some think of knowledge as the facts we learn in life and wisdom is implementing these facts in a practical, way.  I have to disagree a little with this as I think that true wisdom comes from God.  He helps us put knowledge to use in a practical, moral way.

Anyway, being knowledge comes from worldly ways, it can have the tendency to corrupt.  As a matter of fact, it will almost always corrupt.  It can puff us up as in building up our egos.  I don’t think I have to tell you about how many smart people are almost impossible to be around because they think so highly of themselves.  This is not what we are called to do.

We are called to love each other because love builds us up.  This is why we are called to love all through the Bible.  Love makes the world go round.  We also need knowledge but if we think we know stuff then we probable do not know what we ought to know.  If you are constantly trying to gain knowledge, then you are missing a lot of life.  You have not really scratched what you ought to know.  But if you love God, then you are known by God.  If you are known by God, then you have all the knowledge at your fingertips from the very author of knowledge itself, Jesus.  It is hard for us to understand because we have been taught to be so independent.  If you give your all to Jesus Christ, He will give you whatever you need, whenever you need it.  This is one of the reasons that I always ask, “Do you have Jesus living inside of you?”  If you don’t, then confess you sins to Him, all of them, and ask Jesus to live in your heart as your Lord and Savior.  You will never regret this.

So, now we are back to the food sacrificed to the idols.  In Biblical times, the people had idols for just about everything.  If you visited some of the ancient Greek cities, they would have idols everywhere for everything.  I believe Paul describes this in his other writings.  These people knew about idols.  Their whole life had been devoted to worshipping idols.  Many of these religions sacrificed animals and people to their idols.  It was a sad and dirty business.

Today, we like to think that we have come a long way in being more civilized in all things that we do.  But are we really?  I could stand here and name idols for the rest of our time but I think that you have enough wisdom to know what I am talking about.  We will let just about anything come between us and Jesus.  I was told once by a state agency in North Dakota that we have to get used to having kid’s tournaments on Sunday mornings because that is the way it is going to be.  This is from a state agency.  People, we are being run over by the people who are suppose to take direction from us.  If you don’t believe me, then how many of you read your Bibles every day?  How many of you have a prayer life to Jesus every day.  How many of you come to church once in a while instead of every week?  Some people have told me that I’m a pretty good preacher.  But I will tell you this.  There is no way I can preach good enough to get you so you are good for two weeks down the road.  My sermons will only get you to next Sunday, and that is a fact.

But we know better than this.  We know that no matter what we sacrifice to an idol, the idol will just sit there and do nothing.  It cannot eat.  It cannot drink.  So look into your life and find your idols.  I would guess that you all have them.  Then see if you can get rid of them.  They have no power over you.  They are only your imagination.  Then you will be on the right track because we know that there is only one God.

That is the crux of the problem.  We have a God who has made everything.  He can do anything.  He is more powerful than we will ever need.  And still, He loves us with a passion that cannot be beat.  And that is just God, the Father.

Then we have only one Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is God who came to live with us on this earth.  He is the one who heals the sick.  He makes the lame walk plus He is able to walk on water.  We try to live our lives through Him because He was the only perfect being that there has ever been.  And even though He is all these things and more, we can still talk to Him.

We do this through the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent to live with us after He went back to the Father in heaven.  Any time you have a problem; you are able to go to the Holy Spirit for help.  He will help and help and help!  This is what you get when you become a Christian.  You get a package deal with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  There are so many people who do not believe because they cannot figure this out.  The best part of this is that you do not have to figure it out.  Do not waste your time trying to figure it out.  It cannot be done.  The only thing you have to do is believe.  There is such a great life waiting for you if you would only believe. I cannot stress this enough.

But we are stuck in this world where most people do not believe.  People thought in ancient times that if you ate food that had been sacrificed to an idol, it and you were defiled.  This is why it is talked about so much in the New Testament.  Even in the Jewish tradition they did this.  If you remember, only the Levites were able to eat the meat sacrificed.  They made a special rule so that all that good food would not go to waste.  The Levites could eat it.  It had nothing to do with God!  Paul goes on to say here that it does not matter if you eat this meat or not, because you will be not better or worse if you do or do not.  These idols were worthless.  They meant nothing.  They were powerless.

Today, some of our idols are social issues.  Do not get me wrong here because we have to take care of the social issues.  Just look at any church and you will find social issues like homelessness, homosexuality, power issues, race issues and so on.  These issues need to be addressed.  However, most churches address them before they will address the sin inside an individual, inside of you.  They only care if you want to go out and work in the field against some so-called social issue.  I’m here to tell you today, that if you do not first have Jesus living in your heart, you are worthless on the social issue platform.  You can do things but they mean nothing to God because you do not have Him.  You see, everything starts with Jesus living inside of you.  Then He will show you the way to what He wants you to do.  The church cannot do this.

The last part of this might be harder than all the rest.  We are called not to be a stumbling block for the weak.  The weak here are those people who do not know Jesus.  They are about 70% of this country.  I say this because we have many, many who say they are Christian but they must, they have to be able to define who Jesus Christ is.  Hopefully, we all know that this can never happen.  How can someone as sinful and darkened as we are ever give a meaningful definition of who Jesus is.  Only the Bible can do this.

What Paul is referring to here is the sacrifices of food items.  These people were practical in life.  They did not believe in wasting things.  Therefore, they usually allowed their priests to eat the sacrifice food.  Most of the time there was too much food for the priests so they would sell it to the people.  Now most of the people were quite poor.  They didn’t have much so they were usually very devout in their religion, no matter what it was.  They would be more devout than the priests!  These people would see what the priests were doing and they would be shocked or upset to say the least.  It even went as far as people would quit the religion.  After all, there were so many to choose from.  What this boiled down to was that these wonderful people were more religious than the priests.  The priests’ actions here would drive the people away.  This was also true of the Jews.

What Paul is trying to tell them here is that if they run across people who refuse to eat the sacrifices, then they should not eat them either.  Not because it is against the rules of the Judaism but because by eating it, they would be leading someone away from Judaism.  That is not what you want to do when you are building a church.  Basically, he is telling them not to be so legalistic about religion.

I think we need to rethink this a little today also.  How many times have you had Christian people look down upon your religion or denomination?   If we are all in this together, then why would our brothers and sisters look down upon us?  There is not one Christian denomination in the world that is perfect.  They all have faults.  The reason for this is that they are made up from humans.  And if you have not noticed this before, all humans are flawed.  We all sin and fall short of the glory of God!  Therefore, all the things we make are flawed.  When you are always criticizing others for their religion, then you may be tearing down a fellow Christian.  We live in a world where there are not too many real Christians.  So be careful with what you are doing because you may lead others astray and you do not even know it.

All of this is so that we always emphasize that Jesus is the greatest being ever.  It is ok to search out projects to help others.  I think that is one of the best secondary things that a church can do.  However, our first and main purpose is to make new Christians.  We do this by inviting and inviting and inviting all we know. You invite by using your gift or gifts in inviting ways.  If this becomes too much pressure, then you are probably doing it for the wrong reasons.  Your gifts should come naturally and without pressure.

Today’s message came today from our God who wants no idols in your life.  He wants no pressure in your life.  He only wants the best life possible for you.  That begins with loving Him above all else.  Then He asks that you spread His message to all you meet with the wonderful tools He gave you.  You are the most important person in His life.  Go and spread His word.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.