Everybody Knows That!
Messy • Sermon • Submitted
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· 6 viewsWe are so quick to tell someone what they should do instead of learning to love them through it.
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Introduction
Play the “I have a dream” speech.
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave this speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C..
What you might not know is that it was in commemoration of the 100th year anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation given by Abraham Lincoln during the civil war in 1863.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister that attempted to change the narrative of the way we see people and life around us.
Many would say that we are still working to realize the dream and the narrative is still being rewritten.
Although Pastor King was martyred for the cause, I do believe his work is one of the very reasons we can have a church like Reliant today. A Church for all people.
Sometimes it take a long time for people to begin to walk in a new way. Once a people have made up there mind on something it is hard to renew the mind and begin thinking in a new way.
It is the same for new Christians that come to Christ later in life. All their life they are taught to think and act a certain way. Then after receiving Christ, they have to renew their mind by the washing of the water of the word, guided by the Holy Spirit.
Today as we look at the scriptures Paul will address this idea to the church at Corinth.
People had grown up believing in a plurality of gods. They were taught that they had to make sacrifices to the gods or the gods would get angry with them.
The church had to find a way to lovingly renew the minds and bring them into the truth of God’s Word. We still do the same thing today.
So what method does the Church use to renew the minds of people.
One method is Dictatorship. Follow without question.
One method is Legalism. Follow our rules or you’re out.
Another method is Loving Instruction. Genital guidance by God’s Spirit with patience that brings about real life change.
This is the method that Paul describes in .
Bible Lesson
1 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.
1 Cor 8:
“It’s not how much you know, but how much you love that changes lives.”
“It’s not how much you know, but how much you love that changes lives.”
So there are two elements of Change that must be considered:
There is an element of knowledge that must be considered. Change must be brought about by knowledge.
Knowledge of the truth will set you free from the bondage, and darkness of this world.
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Knowledge is not character. Character is determined by what you do with the knowledge you posses.
Knowledge is power. Given the right knowledge you can move in the right direction and make the right decisions.
4 Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—
6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
1 Cor 8:4
Having this knowledge sets us free from the lies and false control of the world.
With this knowledge we can make good decisions based on the truth.
A person who has knowledge but yet still chooses to live in darkness is described as a fool.
Paul talking about the Jewish people his brothers makes this statement in .
1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Therefore proper knowledge of the truth is needed for proper change.
There is an element of love that must also be considered. Love makes room for the necessary changes to take place.
We that know the truth must learn to speak the truth in love.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
Eph 4:15
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
1 Cor
When renewing a person’s mind, love creates the necessary space for a person to grow into that new truth.
Are we willing to take the time and make the space necessary to love people through their ignorance?
Closing Arguments
We practice this all the time with our kids. Have you ever heard the phrase, “Don’t cry over spilt milk.”
“Your focal point of life determines your clarity of knowledge.”
“Your focal point of life determines your clarity of knowledge.”
7 However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
1 Cor 8:7
Respect the fact that people struggle with different things coming from different walks of life.
We are so quick to tell someone what they should do instead of learning to love them through it.
Love them enough to refrain from things they won’t understand and give them time to grow through it.
The first time I took Shawn on a missions trip to Mexico.
Protect your brother or sister as they recover from the darkness of the world. Gently bring them into the light.
8 Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“Love builds a safe environment in which people can grow into the knowledge of God’s truth.”
“Love builds a safe environment in which people can grow into the knowledge of God’s truth.”
Build a context of love around a person before you try pouring in the truth. Love makes statements like this:
Closing Arguments
It is safe for you to know anything yet. You are still welcome here.
It is safe to try and fail here.
It is safe to learn and grow here.
Protect your brother or sister as they recover from the darkness of the world.
Gently bring them into the light.
Turning on the light after someone has been living in the dark. To those in the light we have adjusted, but to those coming out of the dark the light in confusion.
“Careless liberty wounds a brother and is a sin against Christ.”
“Careless liberty wounds a brother and is a sin against Christ.”
10 For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? 11 And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died.
1 Corinthians
12 Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should.
Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should.
Love will cause you to curve your liberty in Christ for the sake of a brother in Christ.
Closing Thoughts
Are you placing your love for other above your liberties in Christ?
See this changes the whole scenario from “Can I?, to “Should I?”.
We practice this all the time with our kids. There are certain shows and movie we don’t watch with the kids because it will offend there conscience, and they won’t be able to put the sound and pictures in the right context.
Are there some areas of your life in which you need to grow in your knowledge so that you are not so easily offended?
Do you need a safe place in which you can grow in love and knowledge?
I believe Reliant is that place and our discipleship is that path.
This is what we strive for when we say, “You can come as you is, you just can’t stay as you are.”