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Stumblingblock or Buildingblock

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 8
Meditation: I Corinthians 8:9

“Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”

Shift Your Focus… Since I am saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and not by works, I am free from the demands of the law. There is no longer a long list of do’s and don’t’s that I must observe in order to be right with God. I am right with God because I stand before him robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So, to paraphrase St. Augustine, I can just love God, and do what I want.

Except….

Except that I no longer live for myself. I am living for God, I am living with my brothers and sisters in the family of God, and I am living as a kingdom agent in an unsaved world. So what I do has consequences. My behavior affects God’s reputation on Planet Earth. My behavior, in some cases, may offend a weaker brother or sister, or perhaps even lead them into sin. May behavior may cause an unbeliever to conclude that there is no difference between a Christian and himself.

I may have divine permission under grace to do certain things, but those things may not be beneficial to me. Paul says it this way a couple of chapters later:

“Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” (I Corinthians 10:23-24)

The highest use of my spiritual freedom and the best use of God’s grace is to do things that build up my fellows believers in God’s family and attract the lost to Jesus Christ. That is what most glorifies God. That is when grace is most attractive. That is where spiritual freedom is most powerful.

That is why, even though I don’t have to, I may refrain from taking in certain chemicals into my body, or partaking in certain forms of entertainment, or dressing in certain ways, or using certain kinds of colorful language. I can do those things if I choose, but they may very well become a stumbling block to someone else’s path to God.

And I don’t want to be a stumbling block. I want to be a building block.

“The law works fear and wrath; grace works hope and mercy.” ~Martin Luther

Prayer… Lord, help me to ruthlessly govern my freedom so that it can be leveraged for your highest glory.

 

 

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Pre-Game Warm Ups

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 6
Meditation: I Corinthians 6:1-3

“If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!”

Shift Your Focus… Do you realize that how you deal with life now is simply warm-up for your life to come in eternity?  How you handle crises, resolve disputes, overcome temptation, steward your resources, serve in a ministry, treat your spouse, love your neighbor, control your tongue, get along with fellow believers, and so on, is in truth, preparation for a life of purpose in the eternal world awaiting beyond this one.

That puts everything you do now in a whole new and much more important light.  Earth is getting you ready for heaven—hopefully!  Life is kindergarten, and you are about to enter the first grade—but you first have to attain a certain mastery of reading, writing, and arithmetic…and oh yes, playground etiquette, too!

Heaven will not be about sitting beside a crystal stream, strumming your golden harp and watching the angels dance like sugar plum fairies.  Your eternity is going to be purposeful.  You will have a job to do.  You will be on mission for God, ruling over his unending and ever-expanding creation.  You are going to reign with Jesus Christ.

Therefore, you must learn how to rule and reign now!  And the little corner of God’s kingdom that is represented in the church to which you belong is your proving ground.  That is why serving in a ministry and faithfully attending and financially supporting and preserving the harmony of your fellowship now is so important in light of what is coming next.

That is the point of Paul’s stinging rebuke to the Corinthians who decided to take an unresolved dispute with other believers to a worldly court. He reminds them if they can’t even handle playground stuff like resolving conflicts with each other, how can they be expected to judge the world and administrate angels.  Likewise, if they can’t learn to control their bodies and refrain from sexual sin now, how can they be expected to exercise control over God’s uncontained universe.

Do you get the point?  We must master life now in all of its dimensions—big and small, because it is preparation for the really big stuff that God has waiting for us in the next life.

The school year is coming to an end; kindergarten is almost over.  Are you ready for what’s next?

“To enter Heaven a man must take it with him.”  —Henry Drummond

Prayer…  Lord, remind me that how I handle the details, big and small, in my life today is critical preparation for what is to come.

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What Would Happen In Your Marriage

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 7
Meditation: I Corinthians 7:16

“Don’t you wives realize that your husbands might be saved because of you? And don’t you husbands know that your wives might be saved because of you?”

Shift Your Focus… What would happen in our marriage relationships—in all of our relationships, for that matter—if the primary motive was to introduce our significant other to Christ?

I am not talking about badgering a spouse into the kingdom through a non-stop, hard sell verbal witness. I’ve known spouses who have done that—and it rarely leads their mate to Jesus! It often leads them to bitterness and greater resistance to the Good News. C.S. Lewis wrote,

“It is right…that we should be much concerned about the salvation of those we love. But we must be careful not to…demand that their salvation should conform to some ready-made pattern of our own.”

What I am talking about is offering your loved one the real Jesus. I’m talking about showing them what authentic salvation is all about. I’m talking about living every dimension of your life in such a way that Jesus shines through. That’s really what Christians are meant to do, after all. We are to make the Savior attractive (Titus 2:10) to those who are far from him by the way we live—how we respond, how we serve, how we give, how we navigate disappointment, how we suffer, how we freely forgive, how we love proactively and how we extend grace unconditionally.

What if our highest marriage goal was to be living proof of a loving Savior to our spouse? Who wouldn’t be attracted to Christ when we are living that kind of winsome witness!

And even if our loved one already knows the Savior, our assignment is no less. We are to be Jesus to a believing spouse as well. Our living witness to a loving Savior should be the very thing that makes our loved ones want to go deeper in their own relationship with the Lord.

That’s our job—to be Jesus to the people we love. We may be the only Savior they will ever see!

“When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now…. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” ~C.S. Lewis

Prayer…  Dear God, my prayer this morning is simple:  Help me to so live that my spouse sees you when she sees me.  When I speak, in my body language, in my actions, in my attitude, help me to be the Gospel in the real world of my everyday relationships.

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Now That’s Tough Love

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 5
Meditation: I Corinthians 5:5

“Hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.”

Shift Your Focus… In case you haven’t noticed lately, we now live in a culture that openly worships at the altar of tolerance and political correctness. And anyone who dares violate those values is labeled hateful, shunned as a bigot, mocked in the court of public opinion and increasingly, sued in a court of law. As a result, it is now high risk for a church to desecrate culture’s value-gods by tackling moral issues. Even worse, these value-gods, masquerading as angels of enlightenment, have crept into the church, compromising its moral integrity and corroding its very reason for being.

I wonder what would Paul think of the spiritual condition of the American church today? What kinds of immoral behavior would he find being tolerated in far too many congregations? What would he have to say to spiritual leaders who refuse to carry out church discipline and resist holding people accountable for fear of losing members to the church down the street? How would he react to the pride we take at being so inclusive and tolerant that we hardly even mention the “s” word anymore from our pulpits—you know, “s-i-n”?

A few years ago I was helping one of my daughters set up an apartment in the city where she was attending college. As we talked about nearby churches she could possible attend, we saw one within blocks with an outdoor sign that read, “people of all races, genders, and sexual preferences welcome here.” Hmmm! That would have been fine if they were accepting the sinner without condoning the sin, but I doubt that is what they had in mind.

The sharp demands of Paul is this chapter need to be heeded by the modern church! The Corinthians were proud of their tolerance of a man who was sexually involved with his father’s wife (technically, his step-mother). Paul rebukes their misguided acceptance and calls for a can of tough love to be opened up on this man. He was to be put out of their fellowship, and thus, out from under the spiritual covering of their church.

In so doing, a number of painful but helpful things would happen: For one, verse 5 says this man would be handed over to Satan, where he would experience the awful pain of life apart from God’s protective presence. Perhaps in allowing his flesh to be battered by Satanic forces, he would come to his senses, repent, and thus his spirit would be saved.

For another, in putting the sinner out of the church, the church would be preserved from this kind of sin taking root and spreading to other believers, according to verse 6. Yet another result Paul talks about in verses 9-12 is that keeping sexual impurity out of their church would keep them distinct from and attractive to a world that was fundamentally sick with sexual sin and thus slated for Divine judgment.

The lesson here is that when churches refuse to execute spiritual discipline in cases of clear and blatant immorality, they lose their very reason for being (see Revelation 2-3). Thinking they are being loving, they are really being loveless. In thinking they are being tolerant, they are really opening their body up to spiritual disease. In thinking they will be more attractive to the world, they are tacitly approving the world’s godless behavior and in reality, allowing the lost to plunge headlong toward eternal punishment.

So what are you to do with all of this information? I would suggest you talk with your spiritual leaders and insist, even demand, that they never shy away from their calling to execute church discipline—even if that means they have to open up a can of tough love on you.

Wouldn’t you agree:  We have a desperate need for some tough love these days?

“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.” ~Robert Anthony

Prayer… Lord, restore discipline to the church.  Give us bold leaders who will not fear the consequences of tough love.

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The Altar Of Popularity

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 4
Meditation: I Corinthians 4:6

“‘Do not go beyond what is written.’ Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.”

Shift Your Focus… In a stern but fatherly way, Paul is taking the believers in Corinth to task for their reckless immaturity in choosing preachers based on popular appeal.  He points out that when they engage in this sort of thinking, it is not only a sure sign of persistent spiritual infancy, but clear indication that they have entered into a realm reserved only for the Lord himself:

“Don’t get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the ‘Well done!’ of God.” (I Corinthians 4:5, The Message)

That same sort of preacher-by-popularity mentality is just as persistent a spiritual immaturity in the modern church as it was among the Corinthians.  We are particularly susceptible to it because of our ability to see and hear so many different spiritual communicators via religious television, teaching tapes, radio ministry, books and magazines, and cyber ministries, just to name a few.  As beneficial as these modern media are to the spread of the Gospel around the world, it has also created a culture of Christian celebrity that has not been good for the church.

People now choose churches based on the popular appeal of the pastor, or the cool factor of the church’s architecture, or what kind of need meeting ministries are offered, or if the church has a happening band and a Starbucks located in the lobby.  We have fallen prey to the Corinthian syndrome.  We evaluate our church experience on everything other than what the Lord of the church thinks.  And in so doing, we have exposed our own persistent spiritual immaturity.

The American church would do well to listen to Pastor Paul’s fatherly counsel.  In fact, it would be healthy for us if someone of Paul’s spiritual stature would walk into the church, so to speak, whack us upside the head and tell us to knock it off.  That’s exactly what Paul threatened to do to the Corinthians:

“I know there are some among you who are so full of themselves they never listen to anyone, let alone me. They don’t think I’ll ever show up in person. But I’ll be there sooner than you think, God willing, and then we’ll see if they’re full of anything but hot air. God’s Way is not a matter of mere talk; it’s an empowered life. So how should I prepare to come to you? As a severe disciplinarian who makes you toe the mark? Or as a good friend and counselor who wants to share heart-to-heart with you? You decide.”  (I Corinthians 4:18-21, The Message)

Don’t you think God is just as serious about this sort of persistent immaturity today as he was then?  We had better listen up, or God just may send someone or something like Paul was threatening to do to get us back on the right track.

What say we reject this culture of Christian celebrity and get back to seeing things as God does?  We would be a lot better off if we would!

“Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity.” ~Charles Spurgeon

Prayer…  Lord, deliver us from evil—that is, the culture of Christian celebrity!

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Eternally Valuable or Immediately Flammable

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 3
Meditation: I Corinthians 3:13-15

“But on the judgment day, the fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done—if the worker’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward.  But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.”

Shift Your Focus… When I was a little kid, we sang a little song in Sunday School that now, upon reflection, was pretty sobering.  If I had truly understood it’s message at the time, it would have scared the willies out of me. It went something like this:

Oh be careful little hands what you do.
Oh be careful little hands what you do.
There’s a Father up above, looking down from heaven with love,
So be careful little hands what you do.

The song had several verses: “Oh be careful little feet where you go… Eyes what you see… Ears what you hear…” and so on.  It was cute and catchy in a way that made it unforgettable, but it also contained a not-so-subtle threat that served as the song’s underpinning:  Be very careful—God is watching you!  And if you mess up…

Obviously, that was back in the day when parents didn’t think a whole lot about damaging little Johnny’s self-esteem.  At least they didn’t in my home, and my church.  They didn’t mind talking about things like offending God and its consequences, judgment and hell, and all kinds of other things that would make most church people squirm today.

However, squirming is sometimes good for us.  And Paul is taking us through a “squirm session” in this section of I Corinthians.  He has been addressing some of the divisions that have developed in the church at Corinth.  The people have been choosing up sides as to who their favorite preacher was.  Some said, “Oh, I got saved under Peter’s ministry.”  Others said, “Well, I have grown the most under Apollos’ fine expository preaching.”  Still others shot back, “Yes, but I have been spiritually grounded in Paul’s deep theology.”  Then the really spiritual people would top them all:  “Oh yah, we follow Christ!”

It’s not all that different today, is it?  I hear people say, “Oh, I get so blessed by Joel Osteen.  He’s so positive and I like that smile.”  And then others says, “Well, I like John MacArthur. He teaches verse-by-verse, you know!  That’s the only way to study the Word!”  And there are those who say, “Dude, Rick Warren’s the man!  He’s so funny and easy to follow.  That purpose driven stuff is really cool.”

Paul delivers a needful blow to this preacher-by-popularity mentality  when he reminds the Corinthian believers that they have missed the fundamental point:  The church has but one leader, Jesus Christ.  We are not under Paul’s or Peter’s or Rick’s or Joel’s lordship, we are under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

The Apostle then reminds them that the church is like a seed, and the seed is from God, and no matter who waters that seed, God is the one who makes it grow.  Switching analogies, Paul then talks about the church being built on the foundation, and that foundation is Jesus Christ.  And anyone who builds on it—whether Paul, or Apollos or Peter…or for that matter Brother Jones or Sister Bertha, or you or me—needs to remember that we are building on a foundation that is Jesus Christ.  So let us be careful then how we build.

Now he’s the clincher:  One day each of us will stand before God to give an account as to how we added to that foundation.  And by the way, we all add to the foundation.  No matter who you are or what you do, if you are a Christian, you are a part of building the church, either adding to it and beautifying it, or taking away from it and diminishing its value.  And on that final day, our works—what we have done with Christ’s church—will pass through the fire.  Then the truth about our work will be exposed for what it is:  Eternally valuable or immediately flammable.

So Paul’s warning is very important:

Oh be careful little hands how you build!
There’s a Father up above looking down from heaven with love,
So be careful little hands how you build.

Notice what Paul goes on to say in verse 16:  “Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?  God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple.  For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”

We often hear that our physical body is the temple of God, and to be sure that is true.  We need to pay more strict attention to that.  But we also need to be aware that the church we belong to is the temple of God, and it is the dwelling place of God the Holy Spirit.  And if the Spirit of God dwells in our church, we, both worshippers and workers, laity and leaders—all of us—need to be very aware of what we’re doing with that temple.

Paul’s advice:  Don’t trash the temple—either by wrongful attitudes or by inappropriate actions.  There’s a Father up above looking down from heaven with love, so be very, very careful what you do. Love the church, serve the church, build the church—and do it all in a way that brings glory to the Lord of the church and pleases the Spirit of the church, and honors the God of the church.

“The apostles were made evangelists to us by the Lord Christ; Jesus Christ was sent by God. Thus, Christ is from God, and the apostles from Christ…The Church is built on them as a foundation.” ~Clement of Alexandria

Prayer…  Lord, thank you for the reminder of how precious the church, your bride, is to you.  Forgive any attitude that I’ve had that lessens the value you place upon my community of faith.  I pray that you would give me a new energy and zeal to love, serve and build your church in a way that glorifies and pleases you.  And on that final day, I pray that the work I’ve done will pass through the fire as eternally valuable.

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Believing Is Seeing

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 2
Meditation: I Corinthians 2:9-10

“‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’ the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.”

Shift Your Focus… God, the creator of all that is, is knowable. He has made it so that we can know him—not just about him, but know him—deeply, intimately, and personally. We can know who he is, what he is like, what he likes, what he wants from us, and what his plans are.

The question is, how do we get to know God? Paul indicates in this verse that getting intimately acquainted with the Creator of the universe will not happen through human wisdom alone—what we might refer to as the pursuit of knowledge or research or reason or intellect. God has set the rules for getting to know him and he has declared that the avenue to knowledge is by way of faith.

That’s an infinitely critical point, by the way, since in the last several hundred years, man has elevated reason over revelation as the way to enlightenment. This has been especially true in western societies where we are willing to put faith only in that which can be demonstrated empirically. In our world, reason is king and faith is optional.

But for the Christian, everything starts with God. Reason is based on sensory data—what a person can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. Reason is not bad; don’t misunderstand what Paul is saying. I think Paul would quickly point out that reason is God-given, and that God expects us to exercise it. It is not antithetical to faith, but while reason can lead to knowledge or an acknowledgment of God, only revelation can lead to a knowledge of who God truly is—the God of the Scriptures who has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Revelation is based on something other, something more. Revelation is based on the truth that God took the initiative to make himself knowable, that he has revealed himself to us through his Word and by his Son. Now reason and revelation will not contradict each other, because both are from God. But reason alone will not suffice.

The brilliant Thomas Aquinas, who lived in the 13th century and is arguably the preeminent theologian of the church in the last thousand years, if not longer, said it this way: “In order that men might have knowledge of God, free of doubt and uncertainty, it is necessary for divine truth to be delivered to them by way of faith, being told to them as it were, by God himself who cannot lie.”

Someone can observe the universe (sensory data) and discern (reason) that God exists. They can also reason that he is orderly and intelligent, and discover several other attributes of this deity. But they would have no certain knowledge that he is good, loving, and purposeful. Likewise, this person can practice certain moral virtues apart from a faith-based relationship with God, but they cannot practice authentic faith, they will not have the hope of eternity, and they will never know and practice divine love.

A couple hundred years before Thomas, St. Anselm argued that faith is the precondition of knowledge: “I believe in order that I may understand.” (credo ut intelligam). In other words, knowledge cannot lead to faith. It might get you close, but it won’t get you there. Faith is a gift from God, and when faith is experienced, true knowledge flows. Any knowledge gained outside of faith will be incomplete and untrustworthy.

What he was saying was eloquently stated in the 4th century by another pillar of the Christian faith, St. Augustine. Augustine taught that, “faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” Faith first, then knowledge flows.

All of that is simply to say that God is the creator of all that exists. He is knowable—by his design. He furthermore, has set the rules for getting to know him. Although he has granted the gift of reason that man uses for amazing purposes, reason alone, or call it what you will—observation, research, knowledge, intellect—will never lead to a relationship with God. It may lead to knowing about God, but never truly knowing God. That requires faith. And faith comes only as the result of God’s initiative to reveal himself—to make himself knowable. Responding to his revelation is the faith that is required to unlock knowledge, a saving knowledge, of the Almighty.

So what does that have to do with what you are facing in your life today? Plenty! This God who has taken the initiative to reveal himself and who is discernable and knowable through the exercise of your faith, is a personal God—he wants to be involved in the daily details of your life—and a loving God—he wants to take care of you, favor you and pour out his love on you.

Perhaps you don’t see evidence of that right at this moment, but let me challenge you to believe what you don’t see, exercise faith in this loving God, and the reward will be that you will see, sooner or later, what you believe.

“Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things that are beyond it.  The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know at all.”  ~Blaise Pascal

Prayer:  Gracious Father, I believe.  Help any unbelief I may have.  I don’t see everything I’d like to see, but I believe.  Now I pray that you would reveal yourself in my life today in tangible ways.  Reveal to me your love, your care, and your favor.  In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, the revealed Word, I pray.  Amen.