Ground Rules for Christian Freedom (Part 1 of 4)

I'm talking about Christian freedom. The Apostle Paul taught that what is permissible is not always profitable.

So how do we manage our freedom wisely? Alistair Begg takes a closer look at some of the Apostle Paul's ground rules today on Truth for Life as we continue our study in 1 Corinthians. Alistair is teaching from the closing verses in chapter 10. There was a slogan going around the Corinthian church.

Paul may even have been the originator of it. It is the phrase which begins verse 23, Everything is permissible. Or, if you're using a different version of the New Testament, it may read in your translation, All things are lawful. And what the apostle does is provide clarity for this phrase. He explains what it means and its significance. Everything, he says, is permissible. And then he launches into what we're referring to here as ground rules for Christian freedom.

Now keep in mind this morning that this is not a matter of marginal importance. History proves what the Bible suggests will happen—namely, that whenever a local church gets matters wrong on these kind of issues, it leads to dreadful experiences. For example, when a church airs on the side of legalism, then it becomes a legalistic community, it becomes cold, it becomes brittle, hard, refrigerated, enslaved, and produces clones, produces individuals who haven't really thought for very long. They don't want to think. They simply want a list of rules that they can obey.

They want to know that they're the right ones, that someone has made them the right ones, and that they will be happy to accept them and to live their life that way. It's the kind of church that has an answer for every question but expects no questions. Things seldom change in these churches because they're all locked up. Their motto is, as it was in the beginning, Is now and ever shall be world without end. And it's not referring to Christian doctrine.

It is referring to rules and regulations. You travel anywhere in the world, and you will find church fellowships just like that. They're not all bad, they're not full of bad people, but that's what characterizes them. Now, when a church falls off the other side of the cliff, as it were, and falls down into the realm of license, then it usually goes laughing and joking into spiritual and moral carelessness. In this kind of congregation, you find that people do all manner of things anytime they want with anyone they want, and they usually wake up only when it's too late—only when they've discovered the fact that they are irrelevant, that they're lost, that they are at best in By-Path Meadow, and at worst, that they're nowhere near the track leading towards the heavenly city at all. And all across the world there are congregations like that. The way they arrive at it is to come down on one side of this equation to champion what the Bible, they believe, champions, to negate what it negates, and thereby to embrace this great experience of freedom.

They're not bad people, many good people, many messed-up people. And there are Christians just like this. Now, as we've said all the way from chapter 6, the issue of the New Testament is that there is a narrow striding edge in between these two quarries on either side of the mountain. And the narrow striding ledge to which James refers as the perfect law of liberty is the track along which we must walk.

And in walking that track, it is precarious in the sense that we have this incipient tendency, most of us, to fall down into one of the two gullies. Some of us, by virtue of our background, are far more prone to fall into the legalist camp, and others of us are far more prone to fall into the licensed camp. The degree to which we fall into either camp is the degree to which we severely inhibit our walk with Christ and our usefulness in the kingdom. Now, let me then launch into these ground rules, which are here in the text. I think I can justify each of these statements.

They're largely just a restatement of the verses themselves. What should we do, then, in approaching this question of what am I free to do and what am I not free to do? Well, first of all, we should not ask, Am I allowed to do this?

But we should ask, Does this edify? Now, this comes from verse 23. Paul says, Everything is permissible.

Let's leave that as it stands. However, he says, Everything is not beneficial. He says, Yeah, you're free to do whatever you want, but not everything that you want to do is beneficial, either to you, to your brothers and sisters in Christ, or to the watching world. Secondly, he says, Everything is permissible, but not everything is constructive.

And the word there is oikodomia, which is the word which means to build up. Not everything, he says, edifies. So the ultimate question is not, Am I allowed to do this? But since I am allowed to do this, will my doing of this be constructive?

Will it edify? Here is ground rule number one for Christian living. Now, first of all, let's be clear what we've said many times. On the basis of our previous studies, particularly in chapter 6, we noticed that when Paul refers to all things, he is referring to all things not specifically identified in the Bible as sinful. He can't, on the one hand, give a long list of things that are sinful and then, on the other hand, say all things are permissible. So when he says all things are permissible, he means all things that are not covered as the things that aren't permissible.

You got that? You're not allowed to do these things. So, says Paul, when I say all things are permissible, I'm not referring to these things. What I'm referring to, he says, are the things about which the Bible says nothing, where there is no rule written down, where there's no statement concerning a specific attitude or action of Christian behavior. The question we should ask, then, is not just, Am I allowed?

But will this behavior be useful and profitable? It's not only necessary to ask what one may do, but also to consider the effect of such an action upon somebody else. You may remember, I've told you before, the story of an old man in Ireland who was very well known as an evangelist and as a Bible teacher in an earlier generation, and he used to do question-and-answer sessions. And in one of the question-and-answer sessions, a man stood up and said, Mr. Nicholson, can a Christian smoke?

And Nicholson replied, Yes, you can, you dirty pig. So it answers the question, permissible. It still leaves begging the question, beneficial or constructive. Now, here is the issue.

The word that is used is everything—not everything, he says—is constructive. The question I need to ask and you need to ask—and you're a teenager—ask it about your music. You're a businessman, ask it about your ethical practices. You're a mother, ask it about the way you spend your time. You're a single person, ask it about the literature you use. Ask it about your attendance upon the means of grace.

Ask it about everything that you're free to do. Will what I am doing or I am about to do cause Mr. X or Ms. Y to advance spiritually? Will my activity cause spiritual advance?

That's the question. The question is not, Am I allowed? The question is, Since I am allowed, will it cause advance? Will it cause spiritual growth? Will what I am now free to do, since the Bible does not deny it to me, will it allow me to grow up to be a stronger Christian? Will it encourage my children to grow up in the means of grace?

Will it mean that those who are my friends and my neighbors will go on with Christ and that the watching world will be drawn to him? That's the question. He says, Don't sit around asking the question whether it fits within the list of rules that your church just dreamt on.

That's easy. That's why churches do it, largely. Because we can all just write the list down, then we hold everyone else to the list, then if you violate the list, boom! But when you work on the basis of principle, it's different. In 1 Corinthians 14, if you just let your eyes scan on a page or two, you'll see that Paul reminds us that this quest for benefiting and helping should be a general principle in our lives. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 26, What then shall we say, brothers, when you come together, everyone, as a hymn or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation, all these must be done for the strengthening—same word—for the building up of the church. Now, that's a principle that we'll come to some Sunday nights away from now, but it's the same issue.

Someone says, Well, I want to sing such-and-such, or I've got an ecstatic utterance. Paul says, Okay, let's talk about that in relationship to the general principle, which is, all these things are to be done for the building up of the church. Will this then build it up? The question is not, Am I allowed? The question is, Is it beneficial?

Is it constructive? So then, when we're faced with a decision about some activity or some practice, here's what you do. I've got a decision to make about X or Y. I open my Bible, and I say, Does the Scripture approve it or forbid it? If it is expressly approved—namely, do good to one another—then we don't have to call a committee meeting about the issue.

Just get on and do good. If it is expressly forbidden, Thou shall not commit adultery, then we don't need to go and seek biblical counseling on the issue. We just don't do it.

But if the issue is unaddressed, as many practical issues of Christian living have been and are, then we need to take this principle seriously. If it is not forbidden, then we're free to do it. If we're free to do it, we then have to ask question two. Since I'm free to do it, is it profitable and constructive for myself and for others? If the answer is clearly yes, then go ahead and do it.

Do it all to the glory of God. Is it lawful to go and watch the Cleveland Browns? Well, we could discuss the nature of the Ten Commandments, as we will, in relationship to the Lord's Day, but setting that aside for a moment—that's not what is in my mind—let us say that it is not expressly forbidden that we can go and watch the Cleveland Browns. So we're okay, right? We're going to see the Browns.

After all, it's a neutral thing. There's no thing in the Bible—I have read the Bible cover to cover—the number of times you say the Cleveland Browns are not in there. Well, they are. They're in the Book of Lamentations, but they are. Okay, they're not in there. That's fine.

They're not there. Okay, so we can go, right? Well, maybe. Well, what do you mean, maybe? All things are permissible. It's not professed as being some kind of error. Therefore, we can go. Well, no, not necessarily.

Why not? Well, who are you going with? I'm going with Joe. Oh, Joe, yeah. You mean Joe the guy with the season tickets?

Yeah. You mean Joe the guy that wears the stuff all the time? That Joe, yeah.

I mean, after all, I mean, Joe would go anyway. Well, no, that's not what I heard, because Joe called me this week. He did? Yeah. Isn't this Joe the same Joe that became a Christian at one of our baptism services three months ago in the evening? Yeah, that's him.

Yeah, he became a Christian. Great. I mean, a great discipleship time. Cleveland Browns, Joe, me, discipleship, all things are permissible. Let's go.

Not so fast. Hang on a minute. He called me to ask me a question. Oh, what was that, Pastor? Well, he called me to ask about Hebrews 10.25.

Hebrews 10.25, let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching. Uh-huh. Oh, is that gonna do with anything, Pastor?

Well, just this. Joe said to me, it's a four o'clock game. He says, You know how much I love the Browns. I've had season tickets to the Browns since my father got them with his company years ago. I do not miss the Browns.

I've never missed them. But Pastor, something's happened to me. I can't fully explain what happened to me, but in my heart there is an insatiable longing for the things of Jesus Christ, for the worship of God's people, for prayer, and for the instruction of Scripture. And if I go to the four o'clock game here, that means I missed the prayer meeting, and that means I can't hear what you're about to say about 1 Corinthians 11 and whether women should wear hats in church.

And I really want to know about what the Bible has to say about that. So I don't know whether I should go or not. Now, you see, our brother here, Mr. All Things Permissible, he's got a different kind of discussion on his hands now. Do you understand it?

I don't want to beat it to death. He's got to determine whether the permissibility of his activity at four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon will drive him, or whether his concern for the spiritual well-being of young Joe, most recently professing faith in Jesus Christ, will be the issue that constrains his activity. Not a law, a principle.

What's he going to do? I can tell you that if you find yourself leaning this morning down into the Corrie-Mart license, you hate this illustration. If you find yourself leaning down into legalism, you're going, oh, I love this.

Wonderful. See? See how he did that thing about the rules for the evening service?

No, no, you got it all wrong. Take the legalism check. The legalism check goes like this.

You get a book, Rule 43b, concerning sporting events between three and seven on the Lord's Day afternoon early evening. Thou shalt go nowhere except wherever the approved, aforementioned, duly elected, thrice-baptized group have determined. Fine, we can't go, Joe. It's in the book, man. We're done. I mean, they've got this big book.

It's three times the size of the Bible. We're out of it. We can't go. Okay? That's the legalism check.

License check? Ladies and gentlemen, the evening service will be held in section 132b at the Cleveland Stadium. Hey, Joe, it's cool, man. They moved the whole evening service over there. It's great. You've got to get there just a little bit early, you sing a hymn, and then it just breaks loose from there.

Or the liberty check. Okay? Does my personal freedom to enjoy leisure-time activity take precedence over my spiritual profit and the spiritual advancement of my brother in Christ? Don't just ask, Is it allowed?

That's easy. Ask, Is it beneficial? Ask, Is it constructive? Well, but you see, we may end up at the same place as Mr. Legalist. Possibly.

But the route that is taken is so radically different as to render the location a whole different location when you get there. And those of us who have lived by legalism and the tyranny and the fear that is attached to that will understand very clearly the distinction, because legalism does not produce a holy life. Legalism only produces bondage to rules, and usually to men and women's rules. It is only the love of Jesus Christ to fill a heart and to constrain a mind that produces the perfect kind of freedom that isn't asking, Am I allowed to listen to this kind of music? Am I allowed to attend this kind of activity? But as such a grasp of the Scriptures is to say, Since this fits the category of all things are permissible, let me apply these two important principles—beneficial, constructive.

Now, let's just do one more, shall we, in the time that we have? Let's go on to the second ground rule, which is to put the concerns of others first. This addresses the propensity within us to say, My business is my business. Or to say, What I do on my own time is my concern and doesn't involve anybody else.

And if you're a Christian, you can't say it and believe it. What you do on your own time is not just your business. What I do on my own time is not my own business. It's your business. It's my wife's business. It's my children's business.

My sister's business. Because I don't live to myself, and I don't die to myself. Therefore, if all that I do is seek to go through my life saying, Am I allowed and tick it off, and live with the illusion that whatever I do on my own time is just my own time and I can do what I choose, then I'll never live in the joy of Christian freedom.

I'll never know the reality and wonder of it all. So here's the question. Nobody should seek his own good but the good of others. So we turn around the other way, and we end up with, Put the concerns of others first. Whoever God puts at our sides is to be our concern. Let me cross-reference this in just one place. Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 and 4.

You'll remember these when you see them. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider each other's better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. Now, what does 1 Corinthians 10 24 mean? Nobody should seek his own good but the good of others. I think it means Philippians 2, verses 3 and 4.

That's how it's worked out. But I shouldn't ask, Am I allowed, but will it benefit? And then I shouldn't think about myself, but I should think of others. John Calvin put it this way, This injunction is very necessary, for our own nature is so corrupt that each of us looks to his own interests to the neglect of those of his brothers. Now, back in verse 24, 1 Corinthians 10. Notice carefully, Paul is not saying that we shouldn't think about our own interests at all but that we should not get so bound up in our own interests that we're unprepared to give up the least part of them where the well-being of our brothers and sisters demands it. And then, in verse 25, he goes on to take the principle and apply it in very practical terms.

And that brings us to the third ground rule, which is, don't tie yourself up in unnecessary knots. And if we just anticipate where we'll begin next time, you imagine Mrs. Brown, who goes to the market. And when she goes to the market, the man is there selling the produce, and she says to him, Excuse me, sir, how much is that? And he gives her the price. And then she says, By the way, did it come from the temple before it arrived here?

And he says, Yeah, probably. And she goes over in the corner, she has this big discussion with herself, I wonder if it went in the temple. If it went in the temple, does that mean it's messed up? And if it's messed up, then what will happen if I take it home? And then I put it on my husband's plate, and then he'll start the same thing all over again.

And then we'll have this big debate about whether we can eat it, and the meat will be freezing cold, and everyone will starve to death. Paul says, Don't get into that rubbish. Don't be sitting in a corner asking fussy questions of over scrupulousness. Don't become a Pharisee, for goodness sake. He says, I was once a Pharisee.

I don't want to go back to being a Pharisee again. Have you ever spent time with those people? You can't hardly do a thing when they're around.

You can't even laugh without permission. Everything is a threat to spirituality, because they are so constrained by rules. And some of us have lived such a long part of our lives there, that to even think along these lines is one of the most unsettling things we could ever do. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg with some helpful principles to consider as we exercise our freedom in Christ. We trust that the Bible teaching you here on Truth for Life provides you with some time for quiet reflection on God's Word. And let me just mention, if you're looking to add to your daily time with the Lord, there's a book we're recommending called The Glorious Christ. It's a book of meditations on his person, his work, and his love. This collection of thoughtfully presented readings goes deep into the scriptural insights of Puritan writer John Owen, to take us on a spiritual journey into the preeminent nature of Jesus. As you read this book, you will come to know and experience Jesus as the complete reflection of God the Father and the fulfillment of God's plan of redemption.

The book's author, Chris Lundgaard, helps to make John Owen's writing more approachable. He's also included scripture readings and hymn lyrics and poems to provide an opportunity for us to experience a deep sense of reverence and devotion to Christ. Ask for your copy of the book, The Glorious Christ, today. When you give a donation to support the ministry of Truth for Life, you can use the mobile app or you can give online at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for joining us today. The Bible encourages us to curtail our freedom for the benefit of others. As we'll see tomorrow, we need to learn how to avoid falling into the bondage of someone else's convictions. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.