St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church -- Watertown, WI

Pastor Mark Gartner

Sermon for Epiphany 4 -- Jan 26^th and Jan 29^th, 2006

Dear children who are made free by God’s saving grace,

If I were to ask you the best way to make Chocolate chips cookies, how many different recipes do you think I would come up with? Isn’t interesting how many variations you can find to make a simple chocolate chip cookie. Everyone seems to have a secret ingredient or a special way of mixing it. We are all somewhat stubborn to our own way of doing things. And it is sometimes hard to admit that there might be more than one way of doing things.

As we look at God’s Word today we will see that there are many things in God’s Word that God neither commands or forbids. God has given us the freedom to make our own choices as long as it never strays from God’s Word. One person might think that all people need to wear suits and dresses to church, while some else might think that it makes no difference at all. Who is right and who is wrong? These type of issues fall under the heading of adiaphora. Things that God neither commands or forbids. Today we will see how God wants us to use our Christian freedom in issues like this. Our theme will draw on this freedom that God has given to each of us:

Corinth was quite a place. Corinth’s immorality was notorious, even in a world, which condoned just about any kind of perversion, Corinth still stood out for its many sexual perversions and other sins. But sexual immorality was not the only problem with which the Christians of Corinth had to contend. There were numerous temples devoted to a variety of gods and religions, and the sacrifices at their altars led indirectly to a problem for some of the Christian believers. Not all of the meat offered in the many daily sacrifices was burned up. Typically, a portion was offered on the altar, some was given to the offerer for a ceremonial meal, and the last portion was given to the priests. What the priests did not eat was taken to the public meat market where you could buy it to be eaten in your own homes. What could be wrong with going to the meat market and buying meat?

But this was exactly the problem, which Paul addresses in our text. Many of the Corinthian Christians had been followers of the pagan gods before they became followers of Jesus. The question that many of them had was -- Could they continue to purchase meat from the market, meat that had likely been part of a pagan ceremony, without compromising their faith? Or did that action make them participants in pagan worship? The Old Testament laws that God had set up for them strictly forbade using food sacrificed to idols. Was the same true for Christians who were living after Jesus had lived and died to set us all free from those Old Testament laws?

The Corinthians had written to Paul about their problem, seeking his advice. He gives them his answer here and in a couple of chapters later in this letter. "Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But God knows the man who loves God. Paul speaks first of knowledge, a concept of high significance in Corinth and in the Greek world. What is clear is that there were those in the congregation who were proud of knowing about Christian liberty, and they flaunted the liberty they knew was theirs. They ate the meat without giving it a second thought, not knowing or not caring about what effect their actions might have on other Christians.

But "knowledge" is not the whole story. What we need to remember is that even weak Christians may ‘know’ that idols are really nothing. But head and heart are not always in tune. Knowing about something does not always make us feel right about doing it. Those who were "in the know" needed to understand this, and they needed to temper their knowledge with love. God tells us that we are free to do many things. For this we are grateful. God hasn’t given us a set amount to put into our offering envelopes each week. What he tells us is to give generously, cheerfully and willingly to thank our Lord. God doesn’t govern every part of our life, but he allows us to show our love for him by using our Christian freedom to his glory. God doesn’t tell us exactly how to worship or what kind of music to sing, or what Bible translation to use. He doesn’t govern exactly how our churches need to be set up or how we are to raise our families. He gives us princip! les that we need to apply to each and every part of our lives. This leads to the questions that the Corinthians and sometimes we have when there are differences in how people do things.

The next verse expound on this thought, "So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), 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." Paul makes two fundamental points: Idols are nothing, and there is only one God. Yes, there was the pagan temples with which the Corinthians were quite familiar, with Satan and his cohorts hiding behind the faces of those "so-called gods," and human society had its share of rulers, but the former had no existence and the latter were subordinate to the one true God. The Father is the source of all that exists, and the Son is the one through whom it came into! existence. Since we live for this one true God, there is no reason for us to be concerned with meat sacrificed to idols.

In the same way we need to recognize that there are many ways for us to accomplish things in our lives. We can be thankful that God has given us lots of freedom as long as that freedom doesn’t break God’s Word and just as important we will see from the next part of today’s sermon. We need to show love to our Christian brothers in the faith whose faith may be struggling with these same issues.

"But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do." Nevertheless, Even though we know that there is nothing wrong with eating food sacrifices to idols, Paul reminds them that there is still a reason to be concerned: "Not everyone knows this." There were new Christians who had only recently been freed from this false religion and brought to faith in the true God. Anything that looked like idolatry now made them feel uncomfortable. Eating meat sacrificed on pagan altars made them feel that they were once again involved in pagan worship and were sinning against their Lord. Their feelings are not based in fact, as Paul points out in verse 8. Eating the meat is a matter o! f indifference that does not affect our standing before God. As such, of course, it would be legalism either to prohibit the practice or to insist on it as a matter of Christian freedom.

"Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, won’t he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak consciences, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall." Paul says, "Look out!" He then sketches out a scenario, which probably was common enough in Corinth. You, one of the knowledgeable ones, receive an invitation to a meal at one of the temples for false gods. You accept the invitation and go, knowing that there is nothing inherently wrong with doing so. But as you recline at the table, you are observed by a fellow Christ! ian with a weak conscience. Your action might well cause him to do what his mistaken conscience tells him is wrong. After all, he wants to be "in the know," as well. For him, however, that would be sin—not because the eating itself is sinful but because the decision to do something he thought was wrong is a violation of the First Commandment.

Paul’s conclusion is that if food actually causes his fellow Christian to stumble in his faith, he will become a vegetarian! That shows to what lengths a believer will be willing to go when his actions might have a spiritual impact on another believer. We need to remember this as we live amongst the many fellow believers here at St. Luke’s and around the city of Watertown or wherever we may run into fellow believers. God has blessed us with the opportunity to live together with fellow believers. How should we live around them? What can we do to help strengthen their faith? What are things that we could do that might hurt their faith? These are questions that we need to answer.

If our actions cause someone with a weaker faith to stumble in their faith, we are the ones who are accountable before God. God wants us to take the time to teach what the Bible says to that person and to refrain from using all of our Christian freedom. While the action we did in Christian freedom might not have been wrong from the standpoint of the Bile, it would be wrong if it confused a weaker brother or sister in the faith.

Most of us will not face circumstances, which are exact parallels to the Corinthians. But we most certainly are confronted with situations where we need to apply the same principles in other matters dealing with the lifestyle of a Christian. That is why we need to live our lives aware of two things. God has given us many freedoms as we live on this earth. Thank our Lord as we use our freedoms to given glory to God and to praise God with our lives. We also need to remember that the faith our fellow believers is more important than our Christian freedom. May God give us strength to exercise our freedom carefully as we treasure all that God has given to us. Amen