Life in Christ Is an Open Book Test
When I was growing up, I thought the greatest Christian must be the person who walks around with shoulders thrown back because of tremendous inner strength and power, quoting Scripture and letting everyone know he has arrived. I have since learned that the most mature believer is the one who is bent over, leaning most heavily on the Lord, and admitting his total inability to do anything without Christ. The Christian is not the one who has achieved the most but rather the one who has received the most. God’s grace, love, and mercy flow through him abundantly because he walks in total dependence. This is an excerpt from Fresh Faith by Jim Cymbala, and it echoes one of the points of this morning’s Epistle lesson. This point is that though we face many trials and temptations in our lives, it is not our own inner strength that gets us through them, but it is the strength that we can draw from God through faith that enables us to conquer them all.
Paul starts this passage to the church in Corinth with warnings to the members of the church. He wanted them to be aware that they were still surrounded by temptation, but also that they needed to be conscious of their own feelings. Corinth was a major city in the Roman empire filled with temples for all kinds of pagan religions, and Corinthian Christians were quite a motley crew. They were people that you probably would not expect to turn their lives over to the teachings of Christ. They were converted idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, thieves, drunkards, and swindlers. They came from pagan religions where immoral behaviors were part of religious customs, so Paul uses the example of the Israelites and their travels through the desert to give these new Christians some instruction.
We live in a world where the pagan religions are harder to see. The world we live in preaches messages that right and wrong are just a matter of personal choice, and if we happen to do something wrong, than it is not really our fault. A world that teaches us to do what feels good. A world that tells us that we deserve to have more comfort from more and better material goods. The secular world brings all kinds of messages of sublime self-indulgence. This is really not so different from the culture surrounding the new Christian church in Corinth.
When Moses lead the Israelites up out of Egypt they passed through the sea by the power of God. This for the Christians in Corinth and for us today is an analogy to being baptized into the family of God. In the wilderness the Israelites wandered the desert under a cloud, which was the indication of the presence of God. Once we become a part of the family of God, then he is always with us. He may not appear over us like a cloud leading our way, but he is in our hearts and in our minds. God goes with us wherever we go and whatever we are doing. He is always with us.
Now once the Israelites had followed Moses and God into the desert, did they live the rest of their lives as devout worshipers and saints? It does not sound like it. We can read in several places in the book of Exodus about the people straying from their commitment to God. They would fall into idol worship and behave immorally. By straying from the path that God was leading them on, they were putting God to the test. Paul used that example for the Corinthian Christians, because just as the Israelites were tempted by the hardship of their own situations and the behaviors of the peoples around them, the Corinthian Christians also faced hardships and the temptation of seeing the indulgent behavior of the pagans around them. In the end only two of the generation of the Israelites that went out into the desert with Moses were allowed to enter into the Promised Land, because of their faith in God and obedience to his word. Paul wanted to use this instruction to help the Corinthians do a better job of remaining faithful to God.
The problems that the Corinthians faced were very similar to the problems that the Israelites had struggled through thousands of years before. Now we are living some two thousand years after Paul wrote his letter to the church in Corinth, and some of the problems that they were facing do not really relate to us. Like the issue of eating meat that had been sacrificed to pagan idols, but some of the issues the church is dealing with today are much the same as those that were faced by the Corinthians. There are divisions in the church, lawsuits, immorality, the single life, the extent of Christian freedoms, and differing views of worship and worship styles. Every breakdown in the church in Corinth will not necessarily occur in churches today, but the principles of Paul’s teachings still apply to our own unpredictable experiences.
How fitting it is that we would use this scripture on a Sunday when we will be sharing in communion. The scripture says, “All ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. We will all be eating from the common loaf and drinking from the cups all filled from the same source. They and we eat and drink from the same spiritual rock and that rock is Jesus Christ.
Sharing in the Spirit of Christ does not automatically save us from temptation and it does not deliver us from falling back into sin. As our scripture states, “the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.” Communing with other Christians and participating actively in Christian worship helps to fortify us to resist temptation and that fortification helps us to avoid falling back into sinful patterns of behavior, but it is not a get out of jail free card. We need to be on guard so that when we leave church we do not leave behind our Christian behavior, but rather live out our faith and obedience to God everyday of our lives.
A couple of weeks ago, when church was canceled due to the snowy and icy roads, you all missed out on a sermon based on the scripture from Luke about the temptation of Jesus by Satan for 40-days. This happened right after Jesus had been baptized in the River Jordan by his cousin John the Baptist. Since our Epistle lesson today also deals with temptation, I want to share with you a little bit of what I had prepared based on that gospel.
You might expect that Jesus would have gone directly into teaching and performing miraculous signs and healings after being baptized. After all immediately following his baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove and God the Father spoke from heaven, claiming and proclaiming that this Jesus was his Son and with him he was well pleased. That is not what happened though, Jesus was moved by the Spirit to go out to the desert and for more than six weeks he was tempted and tormented by the devil. During that whole time Jesus fasted, and though he was physically weakened he became spiritually strengthened.
When Satan sees and hears that we are trying to become God’s children and work for God in this world, than there is nothing that he, Satan, would like to do more than to stop that work. The temptations that the Israelites faced in the desert, the temptations that Jesus faced in the desert, the temptations that the early Christians faced in Corinth, and the temptations that we face today, all of these temptations are the same things. They are all issues of the devil trying to prevent Christians from advancing in their walk of faith. They are Satan’s attempts to prevent the word of God from being spread and prevent more people from being brought into the family of God. These battles against temptation are how we may end up bent and stooped from our spiritual struggles.
Here is the good news, all of these temptations that we can read about in Exodus, in the gospels, and in Paul’s letters to his churches, they can all serve as examples for us. As our Epistle lesson states, “they were written down to instruct us”. There is an extra warning here for those of us that may be sitting here or standing here thinking, “Yea, those poor other folks that don’t see what is hitting them.” “If you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” This might be a slightly more subtle way of saying, “Before you point out the speck in your brothers or sisters eye, pull the log out of your own.” As long as we are living in the flesh we are tempted to sin and because of our human side, we will most likely step into it from time to time, but we are not in this alone. We have our Christian family, and God himself on our side and he will help us out of whatever mess we step-in.
That brings me to the second part of the Good News for this morning. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. If you are tempted to cheat on your spouse. If you are tempted to cheat on your taxes. If you are tempted to abuse drugs or alcohol. If you are tempted to skip school or work. If you are tempted in any way, you are not the first or the only person to be tempted that way. Even Jesus was tempted and he had to struggle with that when he was tired and hungry, just as we are tempted when we are in a weakened state. Remember this God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength. The world does not have control over your spirit. God’s power is greater than any of the temptations and lies that the devil will throw at you. Jesus set a perfect example for us as he withstood the temptations of the devil. He had the free will to choose to give into the temptations of Satan if he wanted to. His flesh was weakened and he could have accepted the lies that Satan was spitting at him. If he had we would all have been lost, but Jesus showed us the way to resist any temptation. Test the messages that the world is throwing at you against the Word of God. If those worldly messages do not agree with the teachings of the Bible, than rebuke the world and deny Satan his victory by answering with the Words of God found throughout the scriptures. Those messages from God will provide the way out so that you can endure the testing and then you will be strengthened by God. If that method was good enough for Jesus, then it is good enough for you and me!
Paul starts this passage to the church in Corinth with warnings to the members of the church. He wanted them to be aware that they were still surrounded by temptation, but also that they needed to be conscious of their own feelings. Corinth was a major city in the Roman empire filled with temples for all kinds of pagan religions, and Corinthian Christians were quite a motley crew. They were people that you probably would not expect to turn their lives over to the teachings of Christ. They were converted idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, thieves, drunkards, and swindlers. They came from pagan religions where immoral behaviors were part of religious customs, so Paul uses the example of the Israelites and their travels through the desert to give these new Christians some instruction.
We live in a world where the pagan religions are harder to see. The world we live in preaches messages that right and wrong are just a matter of personal choice, and if we happen to do something wrong, than it is not really our fault. A world that teaches us to do what feels good. A world that tells us that we deserve to have more comfort from more and better material goods. The secular world brings all kinds of messages of sublime self-indulgence. This is really not so different from the culture surrounding the new Christian church in Corinth.
When Moses lead the Israelites up out of Egypt they passed through the sea by the power of God. This for the Christians in Corinth and for us today is an analogy to being baptized into the family of God. In the wilderness the Israelites wandered the desert under a cloud, which was the indication of the presence of God. Once we become a part of the family of God, then he is always with us. He may not appear over us like a cloud leading our way, but he is in our hearts and in our minds. God goes with us wherever we go and whatever we are doing. He is always with us.
Now once the Israelites had followed Moses and God into the desert, did they live the rest of their lives as devout worshipers and saints? It does not sound like it. We can read in several places in the book of Exodus about the people straying from their commitment to God. They would fall into idol worship and behave immorally. By straying from the path that God was leading them on, they were putting God to the test. Paul used that example for the Corinthian Christians, because just as the Israelites were tempted by the hardship of their own situations and the behaviors of the peoples around them, the Corinthian Christians also faced hardships and the temptation of seeing the indulgent behavior of the pagans around them. In the end only two of the generation of the Israelites that went out into the desert with Moses were allowed to enter into the Promised Land, because of their faith in God and obedience to his word. Paul wanted to use this instruction to help the Corinthians do a better job of remaining faithful to God.
The problems that the Corinthians faced were very similar to the problems that the Israelites had struggled through thousands of years before. Now we are living some two thousand years after Paul wrote his letter to the church in Corinth, and some of the problems that they were facing do not really relate to us. Like the issue of eating meat that had been sacrificed to pagan idols, but some of the issues the church is dealing with today are much the same as those that were faced by the Corinthians. There are divisions in the church, lawsuits, immorality, the single life, the extent of Christian freedoms, and differing views of worship and worship styles. Every breakdown in the church in Corinth will not necessarily occur in churches today, but the principles of Paul’s teachings still apply to our own unpredictable experiences.
How fitting it is that we would use this scripture on a Sunday when we will be sharing in communion. The scripture says, “All ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. We will all be eating from the common loaf and drinking from the cups all filled from the same source. They and we eat and drink from the same spiritual rock and that rock is Jesus Christ.
Sharing in the Spirit of Christ does not automatically save us from temptation and it does not deliver us from falling back into sin. As our scripture states, “the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.” Communing with other Christians and participating actively in Christian worship helps to fortify us to resist temptation and that fortification helps us to avoid falling back into sinful patterns of behavior, but it is not a get out of jail free card. We need to be on guard so that when we leave church we do not leave behind our Christian behavior, but rather live out our faith and obedience to God everyday of our lives.
A couple of weeks ago, when church was canceled due to the snowy and icy roads, you all missed out on a sermon based on the scripture from Luke about the temptation of Jesus by Satan for 40-days. This happened right after Jesus had been baptized in the River Jordan by his cousin John the Baptist. Since our Epistle lesson today also deals with temptation, I want to share with you a little bit of what I had prepared based on that gospel.
You might expect that Jesus would have gone directly into teaching and performing miraculous signs and healings after being baptized. After all immediately following his baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove and God the Father spoke from heaven, claiming and proclaiming that this Jesus was his Son and with him he was well pleased. That is not what happened though, Jesus was moved by the Spirit to go out to the desert and for more than six weeks he was tempted and tormented by the devil. During that whole time Jesus fasted, and though he was physically weakened he became spiritually strengthened.
When Satan sees and hears that we are trying to become God’s children and work for God in this world, than there is nothing that he, Satan, would like to do more than to stop that work. The temptations that the Israelites faced in the desert, the temptations that Jesus faced in the desert, the temptations that the early Christians faced in Corinth, and the temptations that we face today, all of these temptations are the same things. They are all issues of the devil trying to prevent Christians from advancing in their walk of faith. They are Satan’s attempts to prevent the word of God from being spread and prevent more people from being brought into the family of God. These battles against temptation are how we may end up bent and stooped from our spiritual struggles.
Here is the good news, all of these temptations that we can read about in Exodus, in the gospels, and in Paul’s letters to his churches, they can all serve as examples for us. As our Epistle lesson states, “they were written down to instruct us”. There is an extra warning here for those of us that may be sitting here or standing here thinking, “Yea, those poor other folks that don’t see what is hitting them.” “If you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” This might be a slightly more subtle way of saying, “Before you point out the speck in your brothers or sisters eye, pull the log out of your own.” As long as we are living in the flesh we are tempted to sin and because of our human side, we will most likely step into it from time to time, but we are not in this alone. We have our Christian family, and God himself on our side and he will help us out of whatever mess we step-in.
That brings me to the second part of the Good News for this morning. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. If you are tempted to cheat on your spouse. If you are tempted to cheat on your taxes. If you are tempted to abuse drugs or alcohol. If you are tempted to skip school or work. If you are tempted in any way, you are not the first or the only person to be tempted that way. Even Jesus was tempted and he had to struggle with that when he was tired and hungry, just as we are tempted when we are in a weakened state. Remember this God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength. The world does not have control over your spirit. God’s power is greater than any of the temptations and lies that the devil will throw at you. Jesus set a perfect example for us as he withstood the temptations of the devil. He had the free will to choose to give into the temptations of Satan if he wanted to. His flesh was weakened and he could have accepted the lies that Satan was spitting at him. If he had we would all have been lost, but Jesus showed us the way to resist any temptation. Test the messages that the world is throwing at you against the Word of God. If those worldly messages do not agree with the teachings of the Bible, than rebuke the world and deny Satan his victory by answering with the Words of God found throughout the scriptures. Those messages from God will provide the way out so that you can endure the testing and then you will be strengthened by God. If that method was good enough for Jesus, then it is good enough for you and me!
Labels: Christian Life, God, I Corinthians 10:1-13, Jesus Christ
posted by Robert C. Howell at
8:56 PM
