Welcome to Truth for Life where we have been learning some principles to consider as we exercise our freedom in Christ. Above all, the Apostle Paul taught believers we are to focus on God's glory, and today we'll find out why glorifying God isn't just a personal Sunday morning experience between you and the Lord.
Alistair Begg is teaching from 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Now from the 31st verse, which is where we left it last time, the Apostle provides these four verses into the first verse of chapter 11, which are entirely positive guidelines, the application of which will revolutionize a life and will revolutionize a church. Last time we focused on just one of these guidelines, that is the opening statement in verse 31, focus on the glory of God.
And our task now is to deal with the remainder. The second one is simply this, don't cause others to stumble. If we're going to understand what freedom is all about, we need, first of all, to make sure that our focus is on the glory of God. Then secondly, when we're thinking freedom, our freedom needs to be constrained by this truth, that our exercise of legitimate lifestyle may be the means of causing a brother or a sister or someone from the watching world to trip up and fall on their face in relationship to God and the gospel. And so says Paul, in relationship to all of this, make sure that you don't cause other people to fall on their face. Now, it is interesting and also important that Paul moves from the vertical axis of glorifying God to the horizontal of how we deal with our fellow men and women. This, of course, is a principle which runs throughout the Bible, and every time we seek to divorce the two, we're in difficulty. There are some people who live as if Sunday was about glorifying God.
And then Monday through Saturday, you do whatever you want, and then come back and clear up the business again the following Sunday. No, no, the Bible will not allow us this kind of notion. Our glorifying of God and focusing on his glory will have immediate practical implications in the way we deal with our wife, with our husband, with our kids, with our neighbors, with our friends, with our church congregation. And so says Paul, if your freedom focuses on God's glory and you're realistic about that, you will be prepared, secondly, to ensure that by your attitude and your behavior, you are determined neither to cause offense nor harm nor injury.
By attitude and by lifestyle, we are going to endeavor to cause neither harm nor injury. Now, the test is easily administered. It's a self-administered test. This is not something that we are to exercise for one another.
This is something that you can do at home. Here's the test. Does my activity, do my attitudes cause other people to stumble in relationship to the Bible and the good news of Jesus Christ and discovering what it is to be a Christian? Okay, dad, is there anything that you do with your money, with your time and with your relationships that will cause your children to fall flat on their spiritual face? Okay, boyfriend, is there anything that you've been doing with your girlfriend when you've taken her out on dates that would cause her to fall flat on her face? Okay, Mr. Businessman, is there anything that you're going back to tomorrow morning that's in a pile on your desk that you know is going to push you in such a direction that unless you are realistic and ruthless about obeying the Bible, you are about to cause someone to fall flat on their face spiritually? That's what he's saying.
Take the test. Is there anything in my attitude or anything in my lifestyle that is set up to cause others to fall? Now, you will notice the willful element in this. Do not cause anyone to stumble. Now, there will always be people who take offense on account of others. The issue here is that we are not to give offense. We are not to willfully determine that, hey, I'm free to do what I want to do. Therefore, if you fall because I do this, I don't care.
Paul says, don't do that. Don't actually cause people to stumble. We know well enough that our lives inadvertently will cause enough confusion without justifying it on the basis of Christian freedom. Now, the interesting thing is that when you read the commentaries on this section, most of the commentaries, in fact, without exception, the commentaries all speak of the necessity of imposing upon oneself a voluntary limitation of the exercise of Christian freedom. So the phrase do not cause anyone to stumble, whether they are Jews or Greeks, whether they are unchristian people or whether they are the church of God. Every commentary that I got my hands on said, therefore, there are certain things that we shouldn't do so that people won't trip up and fall.
Now, that's an obvious application. What I looked for and never found was that nobody in all of the commentaries said anything at all about causing other people to stumble as a result of a legalistic attitude. All the stumbling was on the side of license. And the assumption is that the way we cause people to stumble is because we're doing things under the disguise of freedom that we shouldn't be doing. Well, what about causing people to stumble as a result of our rules and our regulations and our rigmaroles, which have got more to do with our heads than they have to do with our Bibles? Do you think it's possible to cause somebody to stumble because you're a legalist? Sure is.
Sure is. Have you ever seen children brought up in a Pharisaical home? First chance they get to split, they're wilder than anything you've ever seen. Now, we don't want to lay the charge and the blame and the guilt of the parents. They presumably were doing their best. They thought they were applying Deuteronomy chapter 6, but they missed something.
They missed a word. All these things, says Deuteronomy 6, are to be upon your hearts, and you teach them to your children when you walk along the road. And what happened was all these things were in the parents' heads, but the kids never saw them coming from their hearts. And so as soon as they got their little heads out with the framework of their mom and dad's heads, they said, stuff this. I don't need this.
I'm gone. I never believed this. I never understood these restraints.
I never understood the rules and the regulations. And out of the best of motives, parents cause their children to fall flat on their spiritual faces. Ask yourself the question this morning.
I've faced it this week. What is there in my life? What does the Holy Spirit bring to light in my life, areas of my life, areas of my attitude and my activities that may cause people to trip? What about my relationships? What about the use of my resources?
What about the way I use my time? What about my attendance upon worship? Do you think that your non-involvement, where there is a clear command of Jesus Christ to somebody, could maybe perhaps cause your brother or your sister to stumble? Do not cause anyone to stumble. Secondly, be guided by the good of others and not by personal advantage.
That's what he's saying in verse 33. He says, I try to please everybody in every way. So we're to be guided by the good of others and not by our personal advantage.
Phillips paraphrases it in this way. I myself try to adapt to all men without considering my own advantage but their advantage. Paul displays an attractive selflessness in all of this section. God's glory, not his freedom. Pleasing others, not pleasing himself.
Their advantage, not his fulfillment. And contrary to public opinion, the key to loving others does not lie in loving ourselves, but it lies in loving God. And Paul's strategy here is not some kind of manipulative political process. And if we're tempted to read it that way, we need to think carefully.
Even as I try to please everybody in every way. Oh, so the apostle Paul is just into politics is he? If somebody says X and he really feels why he says X in order to bring them along, and if they have an opinion that he doesn't really like, he supports it in order to encourage them. Is that what he's saying?
No, not for a moment. He's not currying favor with people. He's not giving in to people on important matters. Those of us who remember the earlier chapters of our studies in 1 Corinthians could understand that very, very clearly. What does it mean when Paul says that I try to please everybody in every way? Does this sound like pleasing everybody in every way? Verse 1 of chapter 3, brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly, mere babies in Christ.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I want to speak to you. Unfortunately, I can't speak to you as adults.
I want just to talk to you as a bunch of babies. Is that the kind of thing that brings people back? Is that pleasing everyone in every way?
Not the way we tend to think of it. What about chapter 4 and verse 3? I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court. Indeed, I don't even judge myself.
Does that sound as though he's somehow groveling for their acceptance? What about chapter 5 verse 1? Nobody who's trying to please everybody in every way is going to start a chapter which begins, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that does not occur even among the pagans.
A man has his father's wife and you are proud. Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief? And in relationship to the cause of the gospel, and we would need to go to Galatians for this, Paul is really clear that when he says, I seek to the advantage of others over my own, he's not talking about compromising truth. Galatians 1 verse 9. As we have already said, so now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned. Does that sound like you're trying to fit in with everybody?
Joining everybody's bandwagon? Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? He says, or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Well, you say, well, where do we go with this? Well, the reason I'm belaboring this is to make a point. If you take a text out of context, you can make it a pretext. And that is what so often happens with this phrase. Haven't you heard people justifying just about everything under the sun under this guise of verse 33?
Well, I try to please everybody in every way. Therefore, as if Paul somehow was saying that he was prepared to compromise the gospel and a call to biblical righteousness out of a desire to be a man-pleaser. He's not saying that at all. Paul makes the context clear.
Verse 33. The immediate context makes it clear. He is expressing a genuine disregard for his own interests in the light of the needs of the many. So when he says, even as I try to please everybody in every way and we say, what does that mean? Well, he says, I'm not seeking my own good. I'm not living in my Christian lifestyle so that I will feel blessed and that I will be honored and that my little deal will go well. No, that's not my issue.
I'm not seeking that, he says. I've got an overarching objective that is the good of the many. So the Prince of Paul is clear and his purpose is also clear. That brings us then thirdly to our point, seek that many may be saved. In the exercise of Christian freedom, what is to be our heart?
What is the real issue of this freedom? What does it mean and how does it relate? Well, Paul explains it. The passionate longing of his heart comes out all the time.
Every time you squeeze them, it comes out. I'm not seeking my own good, but the good of many, what is that mean? Answer, so that they may be saved. So the whole issue of Christian freedom, Paul, is about the salvation of those who don't know Christ. That's it in a nutshell, he says.
When you reduce it to the irreducible, here we have it. The overarching longing of my life, the reason I'm instructing you, he says, about Christian freedom, the reason I'm telling you to make sure you don't fall into legalism or into license, is not ultimately so that your church will be brilliant. It's not ultimately so that you'll be able to congratulate yourselves on the fact that the pendulum hasn't swung one side or the other, but it is ultimately so that men and women may be saved. So that people who are today in darkness may be brought into light, but so that people who are in the bondage and enslaved to all kinds of conditions as they roam our cities may find liberation in Jesus Christ. And it will only happen if people who have come to freedom in Christ understand the nature of the freedom to which they've come. But if they in turn fall into license or into legalism, then how in the world are people who today are in bondage ever going to find freedom in Jesus Christ?
Oh, this puts a different light on it, does it not? You see, the depth of Paul's conviction in relation to this is everywhere. Romans chapter nine, verse 30, I have actually, he says, reached the point of wishing myself cut off from Christ, wishing myself no longer to be a Christian if it only meant that they who are not Christians could be one for God. I'm prepared not to be a Christian, he says, if only men and women would come to Christ. I become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. And I do all this, he says, for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings. Loved ones, I wonder, do we understand this as a church this morning? As we sit on the brink of going to two services, what is the purpose in your mind? Why are we doing this?
Let me tell you why I'm involved in it. It's because it is another opportunity to win those who as yet are un-won. It is another opportunity to introduce men and women who are in bondage to freedom in Jesus Christ. It is not an opportunity for self-congratulation to play some kind of numbers game in relationship to the development of our church.
A pox on all of that nonsense. There is only one reason, and it's the reason that he gives us here. I'm not into this, he says, for my own good, and you are not to be either, he says, but only so that many may be saved. The church is not an icebox in which we're supposed to preserve our little personal pieties. The church is a hatchery in which we are expecting to see eggs popping all the time as a result of people coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
And when I say the church, I don't mean the church building, I mean the church, the people. We weren't called to keep an aquarium so that people could come around and look at all the varieties of the fish. You go in Burger King, they give you an aquarium, take your mind off the food or something, I don't know what it is. You sit there and you look at the fish, oh, look at that one, look at that one, oh, look at that. No, we're fishers of men, not aquarium keepers or fishers of men.
I remember that. That's a leisure time pursuit, isn't it? If you don't want to play golf, you go one stage higher, that's fishing, so they tell me now. So you go out and fish.
Well, you only fish if you feel like it, you don't fish if the weather is bad, and you only fish in ideal circumstances. When Jesus said, I will make you fishers of men, he wasn't talking about three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon drinking cokes and swanning around on the banks of a river. He was talking about a lifestyle, a lifelong commitment to see men and women come to faith in Jesus Christ. Well, you say, I don't understand, you were as strong as this when you spoke about the glory of God.
Last time you were here, you got all steamed up like this. You're talking about focusing on God's glory as if that was the ultimate thing. Now you're back and you're saying that it seems to me that it's supposed to be winning people to faith in Jesus Christ. That's the ultimate thing. That's right.
Why? Well, Jesus explained it really well, and I'm so glad because otherwise I'd be stuck. John chapter 15 and verse 8, "'In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.'" So God is glorified as man is evangelized.
That's the final point. Be imitators of Christ. Verse 1 of chapter 11, communicate Jesus Christ in relationship to Christian freedom.
Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. Let me ask you, how do you read this? I had never really thought about this verse very much until this week. I guess if anyone had asked me up until this week, I would have said, well, it's kind of a suitable, all embracing summary after a long treatment on the subject of Christian freedom. Someone might've said it's a nice kind of thing to say at the end of a vast and vital treatment such as this.
But think with me. I don't think so. And I couldn't find anybody that wrote anything down about this either. What is he saying here? Follow my example. What is the example that he has just given?
What is the example? I am not seeking my own good. Okay. So we're following that, but the good of many so that they may be saved.
Okay. That's the example. In other words, selflessness for the sake of the salvation of others. That's the example he's given us. And so he calls us now to follow his example so that we would be selfless, that our consideration of programs and plans and everything else within the framework of our church, within the structure of our family life, won't necessarily be the way we want, certainly isn't all the way I would like it to be, but we remain committed to this overarching purpose, selflessness for the sake of the salvation of others. And he says, if you follow my example, realize that I follow the example of Christ. Oh, well, says somebody, but don't we follow the example of Christ in terms of his gentleness and in terms of his endurance and in terms of all those other things?
Of course we do. But what was the explanation that Jesus gave of his own ministry? If Jesus was summarizing in a phrase for us, his whole ministry, what would he have said?
Well, we don't need to be in any doubt about that. We can turn to it and see it for ourselves. Matthew chapter nine and verse 13. Why do you come Jesus? I didn't come to call righteous people.
I came to call sinners. What's your example, Paul, in relationship to Christian freedom? Well, I guess everything finally could be reduced to this, says Paul, that I don't want to prefer myself and my own privileges and prerogatives. I want to be selfless for the sake of the many. What do you mean for the sake of the many so that the many may be saved? And incidentally, follow my example as I follow the example of Jesus.
It all fits together. Look at Luke 15 just briefly. Just let me turn your face to this.
Luke 15. You've got the story, first of all, of the lost sheep. Okay, he has 99 sheep, but he goes out and looks for one. It's interesting, isn't it? Law of averages says you're going to lose about 1%.
Most business guys are prepared to take it as a tax write-off. So he says, no, I've got to go out and find this one that's lost. And he finds it, puts it on his shoulders, comes home, calls his friends together.
They have a party. And Jesus says, I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. Do you believe that? That heaven is happier when one person comes to faith in Jesus Christ than when 99 people get together and have a Bible study. You see, where it brings us is where we need to come. It brings us to, again, the summary statement, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. Brings us to the cross, because it's at the cross that all my presumptuousness and my foolhardy behavior is crucified. It's at the cross where my willingness to compromise with evil is dealt a death blow. It's at the cross where my legalism and my desire to jam everything together is laid low in the dust. And it's at the cross that my self-centered, exclusive preoccupations are seen for what they are. Because it's at the cross that I remember two things—that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior, and that he has chosen to give to his people the privilege of discovering and exercising their Christian freedom in such a way, not that the minority represented in the church will be blessed—they will—but that the many who are untouched by the church may be reached and brought to faith. Herein is the nature of Christian freedom.
Think it out. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. And today's message wraps up our study in 1 Corinthians. If you have missed any of the messages in this series, you can of course catch up anytime through the Truth for Life mobile app or on our website at truthforlife.org. If you'd prefer, you can own this study on 1 Corinthians. The series is available on a USB at our cost of $5. Just visit our online store at truthforlife.org slash store.
Keep in mind, shipping is free. You know, Alistair often reminds us that sometimes the most challenging portions of Scripture for us to study are those passages with which we are most familiar. We can even find it true in our study of Jesus himself. And that's the reason we've carefully selected a book we want to recommend to you about Jesus titled The Glorious Christ. This is a collection of meditations drawn from the Puritan writer John Owen. Author Chris Lundgaard has adapted Owen's writing and has updated the language to help us dwell richly on the person, work and love of Jesus. Ask for your copy of the book The Glorious Christ today when you donate to support the Gospel Teaching Ministry of Truth for Life. Go to truthforlife.org slash donate. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we will begin a study in 1 Peter by discovering three things that are true of every genuine believer. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
