Temptation & a preview of the Lords Table
1 Corinthians 10:12-22 · Randy Peterman · Jul 17, 2016
1 Corinthians, No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926536215019

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, so I'm going to be honest, I hate that I got the short straw and have to teach this passage. So I'm just kidding. I'm kidding sort of in that I don't hate it. But this has been a challenging passage because what we're talking about here this morning is easy to read and feels almost some days like this part of the Bible that if we say that it's right, then we're going to have to probably spend some time meditating on it just a bit more. And so this morning as we take a look at this, it was genuinely a heartfelt prayer that the Holy Spirit would open this to us. I want to briefly start out with a personal story. And personal stories are not scripture and they're anecdotal and all that, okay?

So I'm going to start off with that. And say that I have read this passage, which we'll read out loud in just a second, many times and understood it to basically mean that God was going to give me an out from my sin and it would be the supernatural moving of God and I was not involved in what's going on here. So, when we read this verses 12-14, let's take a look at what's here.

We're going to have to wrestle with the Greek. The English portrays most of what's in the Greek, but I want to call out some of the nuances that are there. And we're going to wrestle with it together. And maybe you don't wrestle with these things. Maybe it's just me. That's not an impossibility. But my conversations with other believers lead me to think that maybe other people wrestle with sin. So we'll talk about that this morning. Then the second half will be almost a repeat of what, in part, Roger said last week in emphasis. So those things will be there. So let's start in 12 and we'll go all the way to 22 here.

Therefore, in context of what Roger taught last week, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but what the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men. You judge what I say.

Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body. For we all partake of the one bread. Look at the nation, Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifice sharers in the altar?

What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than He, are we?

Alright, so we'll dive into this first section here and then make our way through the second section and hopefully there will be some sense of flow and connection there. But hopefully as I read that out loud, if you haven't already taken a look at this passage for the day or the morning or the week, you'll understand that we're facing some interesting content here.

So he starts off talking about this person who thinks that he is standing. So this person is confident in their position in Christ or are they confident in their delivery on righteousness? What do you think his intent is after coming out of the last few verses in chapter 10 that Roger went over last week?

Is Paul talking about position or is he talking about condition? Condition of course. Say again? Condition. So he's definitely concerned about condition here. So this person is confident in their standing and Paul says take heed or watch. that you don't, that you do not fall. Now I'm going to ask, this is a personal experience question, again we all have our own personal experiences, what is it that happens when we get confident in the flesh? We fall.

How many times have you found yourself saying in your mind, oh I haven't, whatever X is. X is a variable that we have as a placeholder for our personal sin issue that we've been dealing with. I haven't X'd in a long time, and in the next 24 hours we X again.

It doesn't matter what X is, but really the reality of the fact is that Paul is warning these believers. They've built up systems that are based on Corinthian thinking that let them feel confident in their delivery. but they're carnal systems, they're earthly systems.

Just like, did offering the sacrifices in the Old Testament make somebody righteous? No, it had to be the faith of the person. Okay, it was the faith of the person. Abraham, he believed and it was credited to him as righteousness and it was years later that the circumcision took place, right? And when we look at the nation of Israel, what do we find when we look at the purpose of the law? Is the purpose of the law to save them? No, it separates them unto God so that they can be separate from the carnal nations.

So there's this pattern, and of course we talked about that last week in much more detail with what Roger taught. There's this pattern of behavior and condition that the flesh likes to hold on to, because the flesh is always going to do it smarter, faster, stronger, better next time. Unfortunately, that often applies to how smarter, stronger, and faster we sin, not that we avoid it. Paul wants them to observe here that they not boast on these things.

I've quoted 1 John 2.16 here in the first paragraph, where John says, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. But when we're working on our standing, and our standing involves what we're looking at, if we're looking at the world and we're looking at ourselves, the fruit that that will bear will fall short.

We can go to Galatians 5.19 where we see the list of the carnal fruits.

But the standing is bound to an opinion of standing. Do you notice that? You think. Your opinion is that you're standing. And that's why it's a conditional thing. So what's the counteraction to that? What's the biblical view of the believer who's not just thinking they're standing? What is that?

On the verb, I think it's important here, thinks you stand versus believing that you are positionally in place. Yeah, so what do we want to oppose that with from a theologically correct position? If the thinking you're standing is the wrong position, what's the theologically correct position? believing you are placed. Okay, so believing we're placed, if I were to modify that slightly, it would be resting in where we're placed, right? And the believing is just actively walking by faith and resting in where we're placed.

So Paul, as he's warning these people, imagine the Corinthians, they're constantly surrounded by these worldly influences that are coming north and south and east and west. There's poverty and opulence. There's cults. There's major religious groups and temples that are there and all of these things are going on. And that's what the world is bringing as an influence all the time. That's the context. Today it's not too foreign. But it's important that we recognize that was the context, and today the context has not changed radically.

Just for the sake of argument, if we're going to simplify this down to a condensed picture, let's say the whole world is either Christian or Atheist, which would be actually convenient in certain regards, right? If they're just Christian or Atheist, and we're not worried about Islam and Hinduism and all these other religious ideas, would that make it easier for us as believers as far as temptation and carnal thinking is concerned? I've got some people saying yes and some people saying no. But either way the temptation that would be there, because atheism has no moral bearings whatsoever, I mean the sexual perversion that we see today is rampant in new gross ways And the idea of gender identity and abortion and all those things, those don't matter to the secular atheist mindset. There are subgroups that have varying views, but those temptations that they commonly spout out as being good, they call what God has called evil good. Romans chapter 1 is real. starts off with this person, watch out that you don't fall. And I just brought up temptation, so let's keep going. He says, no temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man.

Now I'm going to tell you that I took the Greek class with Craig Case over the last couple years and ended it in December. And I ran into man here. And it's not Anthropos, which is what I think of. Anthropinos, which is the type of man. And so I was like, hey, that's kind of cool. That's not to say there's a deficiency in Craig's teaching, by the way. That's not what I'm implying. It was just simply that there was this very specific word that we're looking at here that isn't just talking about mankind in general. It's talking about the type of man.

How many of you are familiar with the term federal head? Federal head is this idea that Adam was the first and everybody that came from him descended from that federal head, that single source. Romans chapter 5 is very concerned about the federal head because we need a new one that's not Adam, that's not built through sin. We have Adam and Noah are the two singular federal heads of of the flesh, right? And Adam being the primary, of course. And so we needed Christ to be the secondary federal head. Because, as Paul puts here, all of these things that are temptations are common to the type of man. The type of our fleshly, carnal nature. Now I want to Kind of think about this for just a second with me here.

No temptation has overtaken you. So, overtaken, that's a bummer word, right? No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. So what does it mean when we look at technology and technology has new ways to do sin? It doesn't matter, it's the desire of the eyes and the rest of the script, the verse that follows. That tends to be the animal, the temptation is consistent. Yeah, and there's a consistency, even if the technology is a new implementation, the temptations are rooted in the same carnal, just as Tom emphasized.

I was kind of thinking along with that, we tend to think Well, in the past it was a simpler and better time and sin wasn't so hard. It wasn't so difficult. Well, you look at history and you see that's not the case. In fact, the political situation, if you look at some of the cartoons from some of the some of the political events in the past, they were as vicious, or maybe even more vicious. They called each other all kinds of names, they lied about each other constantly, and so it hasn't changed. Man hasn't changed, and sin hasn't changed.

I don't know that there's many other scriptures that are so definitive in terms of the two natures. Yeah, it's pretty overt in the life of a believer. It deals with position, condition, it deals with the fact that that sinful nature is still there and part of all of us. I think as we grow in grace, that nature becomes more clear as to what it's really all about. That lighted darkness, this is incredibly important from that perspective. Yeah, and so as I was looking at this, what I wrestled with in the flesh was to think that I had not observed something that was common to man, I thought it was special to me.

You don't understand. This is my sin. Well, Paul says you can't think that, so stop. It's common to man. And if you're not sure what that looks like, we could go to all kinds of places, including Romans chapter 1, and say, okay, here's what this looks like. What Paul does at the beginning of Romans chapter 1 is you've replaced God with something else. And then all these other things come pouring out from that mindset. And so here these temptations come from replacing God with whatever else. What happens? When Satan lied to Adam, he said, we're going to replace God with man. You're going to be good enough. You're going to be sufficient and all-knowing, just like God. Then you won't need him.

And it didn't get better from there. Well, look at Turkey, look at France and everything that's happened. I mean, isn't that Isaiah and Ishmael played out to today's age? I mean, faith. Sure. There's been no temptation. I mean, that's this is church age stuff, but nevertheless. Yeah. Well, the God is faithful to Abraham and then Isaac wouldn't be born.

But Abraham's lack of faith resulted in where we're at today. Well, and we go to politics as man's solution to man's problems if we reject God from the outset. And when we bring politics into the church where we say, oh well, we need to promote this political agenda, and I mean this going both directions, whether or not it's Republican or Democrat or Independent or Libertarian or whatever else, if we bring man's solutions in, and the gospel isn't the crux, we've missed God's only solution for mankind's problems. And the bottom line is, where's our citizenship anyway? Right. And our position, if it's not heavenly, is we're going to only come up with man's solutions.

So, the question that I've got here is, why is it that these temptations should not be common to the believer then? It's a double negative. It's a double negative on purpose. Why is it that these temptations should not be common to the believer then?

Paul says these are things that are common to man. Why is it that they shouldn't be common to the believer if he's writing to these believers that hey this is This is a man problem. Well it shouldn't be common to us as believers because we have a position with God and a relationship with God that doesn't fit. So let's take a look at that. and let's wrestle through this together. Or at least I will wrestle through it and you can watch.

So he says, and God is faithful. So if we start out with God is faithful, there are no outs. There's no exception. As a believer, God is faithful. Period. So God is faithful. Who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. or beyond what you can handle.

And this is the part where I go, alright, I wish Bob or Roger was teaching this because I look at this and I know that there have been, in a conservative estimate, tens of thousands of times in my life where I was tempted and I fell right into it. There is no condemnation. So what we have to look at is why? What is Paul's construct and underpinning for why he can say this? So let's keep digging through this.

So God is faithful and he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able or what you can handle. There will be another translation there from the Greek. But with temptation will provide the way of escape also so that you will be able to endure it. So there's two really key elements to his follow-up statement here.

One, he will create an out, an exit. It's literally in the Greek, it's a way to go out. And so it's an outgoing that you have there. That is the prefix, right? A way to escape, but so that you will be able to endure it. And enduring is the part that I really think is what we wrestle with. We'd like for God to give us a nice big green neon sign that says, go this way. Right?

That's what we're looking for. and then it's gone. The pressure is gone, the temptation is gone, and it's gone. But what Paul says here in the Greek is that there is an enduring, a bearing underneath the temptation. But Randy, don't you think that as believers and we know that the life that we live, we're not living the life, Christ is living the life. Right. That's the secret sauce I was getting to. No, no, you're not ahead of me. That's where we need to go.

But the thing that we see here is that Paul is calling out, without using the word or the phrase, abiding. He's talking about the believer abiding, because when we're setting our mind on things above, what is the framing or the light of the temptation? We see it as what it is. We see the sin that it is as an attractive. Oh, that's sin.

That's not the spirit leading me. And we have contrast. You have said this before, but this isn't an intellectual ascent. In other words, this isn't something we say, gee, let me think through this, you know, and I mean, you know, if you think you stand strong, wake Because this is not a thought process, this is an active faith on the part of the believer.

It's a faith process. Yeah, it's a position of resting, but the thing is that we're created in God's image. And part of that is having an ability to observe things as they really are. And that's what I want to emphasize. It's not that we're not resting. It's not that we're constantly running things through the CPU in our mind and running it through some algorithm.

But the principle of abiding has an awareness of what is true, and so we can identify that this temptation is something that is not from the Spirit. That identification or observation from an analytical perspective, I'm not actually encouraging us to constantly walk around in a clinical analytical perspective, but in a resting perspective.

But hindsight would lead us to be able to describe it clearly, right? Like we might use vocabulary to say, oh I could observe this temptation in this light looking back on it, and I knew that the spirit was not directing me down that path. Whatever that might be, okay?

So the question is why is it not common to believers is because we have this thing that God is doing in our lives. But the language and the Greek structure here says that we have the opportunity if we're abiding. We have to be resting or abiding while this is going on. and we're actively walking in fellowship with the Lord. And so that to me was always the hard part, because my prayer was always like, okay God, give me the out and make me not sin, but the root of my prayer was make me not responsible for my actions. And that was the thing that the language gives us no option to say that we're not responsible when we sin. God gives us the out, but we then, being made in his image, actually can make decisions.

The language is firm on the idea that if we're thinking that we stand, we're doing it in arrogance. And if we're thinking that the temptation endurance will be by our own strength, we're doing that in arrogance. Instead, he says it's going to be in humility. by abiding. It's going to be in humility by resting in where we are and recognizing him, reckoning from Romans 6 that our members are dead and that's how that plays out.

We know that from other verses, here he just makes it simply that we have this responsibility Elsewhere we get clear description and definition of this position of resting and this observing, setting our minds on things above and abiding and beholding.

Randy, are you going to move on from this? Are you ready to move on? Are you finished with this verse here? I had one more thing I was going to say, but go for it. No, no, no, go ahead. Well, something that has helped me with this verse, and I would be just like you, this is a very tough verse, and over the years I've talked to different people, especially Hal a lot, and so one thing that's helped me a lot, that was pointed out to me back ten years ago or more, is that there's a definite article in front of, it's the way, and if you look at also, that's one help, and the other help is, the ability to endure it. Whose ability is that? So I think you could look at this, and I think you, you know, are down that path. I think it's even stronger that, you know, since it's not going to be our ability, it's going to be His ability, so why couldn't the way, the way, you think of the I am the way, the truth and the life, isn't that in a way pointing to our Savior?

So it's not like there's and you open up the little, you know, oh here's the way, it says make a right turn and take a left turn. No, it's a person. The way is a person. Yeah. And that understanding helped me tremendously with this verse. I got away from looking for an exit plan in the sense of go right, go left, go stop, go. Yeah, precisely. I'm looking at a person. I'm looking at our Savior. I found that much more consistent with the rest of scripture and the rest of abiding, we're looking at a person and not a plan.

Yeah, and I always wanted, basically I wanted a psychological trick. You know, the don't think a pink elephant's equivalent to I will no longer sin because I have the psychological trick that will make me not sin anymore. and that this is about the relationship and the person of Christ. So I kind of changed my view on this verse and I moved away from looking from a plan, looking to a person. I found that much more at peace about this verse than I ever have been in other ways.

God, where's the plan? One day the plan will be laying here. Either that or I just stop wrestling with sin. I've reached a point where I don't wrestle with sin anymore, ever, ever again. And I will, eventually, just not here on this earth, in this body.

But see, the old man always has a capability of escaping. That's because of the consequences of that plan. And he wants to create the exit plan. Yeah. Whereas God's exit plan may be to stay in the trial that you're so desperate to get out of. You want to get out of that trial more than anything. And you say, Lord, give me the exit plan out of this thing. And the Lord in his mercy and grace says, no, you're going to have me. You're going to have my very life living through you, and that's how it's going to work.

That just settled me down about this verse because I was looking for the plan. I was looking for the X, Y, Z. In parallel with that, in my studies I looked at this, but I decided not to put it here, but I'm going to bring it out because you emphasize it. I think it's worth doing. I'm in 1 Peter chapter 1.

I'm going to look at 6. through seven although it's part of a run-on sentence but we'll look at six and seven he says in this you greatly rejoice even though now for a little while if necessary you have been distressed by various trials so that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ this proof here is this idea of an assayer checking the value of something. Is it pure gold? Is it what is here?

So the trials and the testing, the endurance actually is a purification process sometimes. And of course we had a whole class on trials and suffering that we've now talked through several times. It's really good if you haven't taken it. Either you listen to the lessons online or You know, we've got the notes, I think, from those on the handouts on the internet. So there's a lot of value there. But the principle of trials and suffering are that they bring value. It's that endurance quality that I didn't want to find here because I just wanted God to give me the nice green neon sign that said go this way and I'm done. The endurance quality is a perspective that's different. So I've got here as a question for the last paragraph.

How do we recognize a non-heavenly minded prayer on events? An earthly minded prayer. How do we recognize an earthly minded prayer about events? The focus is on self. Make this easier for me in my own strength. I don't want to grow, I just want to get through. And if it's done in the next 30 seconds, I'm okay with that, God. The believer's heavenly-minded prayer is actually a really powerful one because it's one that says, okay God, I'm in this trial, I'm in this temptation, I'm in this situation. You're using it. help me to see how you're using it if I'm going to involve myself in any way. Maybe that is the exit, just changing our perspective. Absolutely. The exit, if I were to read a passage for what the exit is, and I've got it noted here, it's Colossians 3, 1-3.

Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. And to your point exactly is verse 2, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. I'm sorry, set your mind, verse 2, set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. The idea that our mind is focused on Him and then the light of our heavenly position and what God is doing becomes focusing in on the thing and not the temptation or the cycle that's there.

Citizenship. Citizenship. Again, yeah, good. It's the only perspective that we should be promoting, right? It's our heavenly position in our citizenship. All right. Any other thoughts on this one before we move on to the second half? Randy, you did a good job. I wasn't trying to... Oh, I know. That's good. So verse 14 is kind of a transition verse. I've got it as part of the previous section here, but it really transitions between 12 and 13 and 15.

He says, Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. So this is not the first time Paul, in this letter to the Corinthians, has used the term flee. So he has already talked about fleeing in 1 Corinthians 6.18 where he says flee immorality. So what is fleeing? Let's talk about fleeing. I am going to say that overall fleeing is not something I've spent a lot of time doing in my life and maybe that's a problem. It's to run away, to preserve yourself, to go towards safety.

But if we think of immorality as satisfying to the flesh, if we think of immorality as a coping mechanism, if we think of immorality as something that has any value whatsoever, or in this case not to immorality, idolatry, If we think of idolatry or immorality, because they're definitely related, and we ascribe them any value, then we're not worshipping God. We're not abiding. We're not beholding the Lord at that point in time. And so Paul says to flee those things.

How many times as believers have we found ourselves in an opportunity of liberty where the liberty clearly gives us room to participate in some activity. But the consequence of really pursuing that liberty will be greater temptation, greater struggles, greater problems. The examples of that would probably be very personal.

But if we were to take a look at Ephesians 5.18, let's jump there, I think that's a very clear illustration of the problem.

So Ephesians 5.18, Paul writes, And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.

So the wine isn't the problem, drunkenness is the problem. But if you don't know how much wine you can handle before you get drunk, maybe you probably should avoid the temptation of what it is, because the drunkenness is the problem. You want to avoid that. What do you want instead? You want the Holy Spirit directing your steps, directing the thoughts of your life. So if something draws you away and tempts you away from a spirit-filled direction, that's a problem. So flee it. Run away from it. Get away from it. Don't flirt with it. I don't know what it is about flirtation, but it's awfully ensnaring.

When we go back and we read the Old Testament, how is this distraction unto sin and death described in the Old Testament, when we read like the Proverbs. It's a beautiful harlot, drawing us away, drawing us away, flee from that, run away from those things. So those things are really important.

Let's turn to 1 Timothy 6.11. I think it's a worthy scripture to read in parallel to this.

So 1 Timothy 6.11, he says, but flee from these things, and he's got a description of things which are evil and carnality, including the love of money. But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. And how do we acquire those things? in light of other scriptures? If we're going to pursue them, how do we acquire them?

Yes, it's the fruit of the Spirit, really. If we think about that list, that's the fruit of the Spirit, which we know comes from a body. So Paul is consistent with himself as we look at his writings where we deal with this idea of fleeing. The fleeing is really running into the open arms of God, not just running away from something.

It's not replacing A with B. How many of you have seen those books, Eat This, Not That? Where it shows you a Big Mac and then a supposedly healthy hamburger or whatever it is. It turns out you can sell a lot of books by showing just two pictures of things. Okay, A or B. A reminds me of the eye doctor, right?

But the thing is that as a believer we're not running away from the flesh to some other thing that's in ourselves in an earthly carnal state. It's in ourselves that's Christ. It's a heavenly position. That relates back to the way to escape. That's the thing. The way to escape is this fleeing and the ideas are intertwined.

So then Paul starts in 15 and says, I speak as to wise men, you judge what I say. And he's not saying that to be sarcastic or manipulative. He's saying, listen, I know that you're not idiots. I know in Corinth you guys love to think, and he's not trying to build up the sophists, the philosophers of the time there, or mock the sophists. He's saying, I know you have Christ. I know you're believers. And I know you're not idiots. So I'm speaking this to you.

You judge for yourself. and then he continues on. Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Now he's going into communion here, right? He's switching modes, but he's not switching modes entirely. What did we just talk about in the first half of 10? We talked about position versus condition.

But we had this idea of idolatry and this participating in the idolatry led them to sin and corruption. So we fled idolatry, as he kind of in 14 used that as a segue, the idolatry was offering of sacrifice and partaking by virtue of participation with the idolatry. So we're fleeing from that. We're judging as wise believers, wise men and women who are believers, is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ. Is the focus on us or the focus on Christ in comedians? Right? It's in Christ.

So I wanted to emphasize something about communion here in this section. Communion has a past, a present, and a future quality to it. And I've always found that to be a good grounding factor in why we take communion. Why do we do this in remembrance of him? Why? And it's because there are three directions in the chronology of time that it draws our attention to. We have a remembrance of what Christ did and who he was. There was no other sacrifice. There was no other acceptable federal head. We had to have Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Son of God and Son of Man, or else we had nothing.

So we look back at what he did and who he was, but we also look now at the present, and it reminds us of our value and our identification with him even now, and our seating with him, and our position now. He is ascended. We can't just think of the death because the death reminds us of the resurrection and the resurrection reminds us of the ascension and the ascension reminds us of the seeding. We can't escape those things. And then also looking forward, we look forward to the future return of our bridegroom, of our reigning with him, our heavenly citizenship, and the results of that citizenship. His glory, our glorification, All those things come together in a meaningful way.

So when Paul talks about communion, it's not that the communion is just a physical act. When he talked about the idolatry in the earlier parts of this verse, it wasn't just a physical act. We know that the gold calf was nothing. It had no power of itself. At best we could say it reflected demons or something like that. but they don't get any authority of themselves.

So we have this principle here of communion that Paul is going to that reminds us immediately of this relationship between the action and our identification with Christ and our position with Christ. So we have this blessing which we share Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? So again, the focus is on Christ and in one another. So the sharing that is there.

And then in 17, since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Now of course, at Holly Hills here, we cut up the bread so it's a little easier. It works well with my germaphobe tendencies that I don't have to worry about that. And it's good because people who are gluten intolerant can have a separate container, right?

So those things are there, but the principle is that they came from one lump of dough and we share those things together in unity together and focus on Christ together. And we partake in those things together just like the temple ceremonies that are there.

The other aspect of the communion ritual is the fact that I am the bread of life. They focus on Christ. He's the bread of life. The body is in fact what we're a part of and that's Christ himself. I think the cup's for the sins being forgiven and the body, the bread is the crucifixion of the old man with him. I think in the bread is his life in us.

I think we shortchange communion because I don't think we see that important aspect of it. Yeah, I find that doing communion irregularly makes me forget about it and doing it on a monthly basis I have to remind, and I'm not saying this critically by the way, I have to remember the specialness of it because sometimes it's like, oh, it's the second Sunday. We always do communion. It's what we do. It's the pattern. But the value of it is the remembrance and all of the elements that the Lord has brought there.

We're going to find here that the church in Corinth had a similar problem when we get to chapter 11 where they took communion of a wrongful heart. And so we ourselves, Paul is calling this into attention here but he's going to dig into it deeper, but we ourselves need to recognize the value that's there as well and bring those things in. into focus for ourselves. We're joined through salvation in the works of Christ on the cross and the communion is there to remind us. He emphasizes those things because he wants to talk about the communion aspect of sacrifices.

So when he goes here into verse 18, look at the nation Israel are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar. So Christ was the sacrifice and we are sharers in the altar. So he goes back to the Old Testament, the altar being the cross in the case of Christ, right? And he goes back to the Old Testament and he says, in parallel, this principle holds that in the nation of Israel when you brought your sacrifice and you actually ate of the sacrifice, you were sharers in the altar. and that association and affiliation was a clear communication of your tent and where your heart was and where your faith rested and that's why when he gets into verse 19 he wants really people to start thinking about what this idolatry means.

It's not just liberty which we've already discussed in earlier passages. This liberty with callousness is going to be confusing for our brothers and sisters in Christ, and it's going to be confusing for those who are outside of the church. So let's take a look at 19 through 22 here, and in light of what does it mean to participate in a sacrifice, in the eating of that sacrifice. What do I mean then?

That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No. And he's already been over this earlier. But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to become sharers in demons." So he's already told us earlier about meat. Remember we talked about meat sacrificed to idols?

That's fine to Paul. Go ahead, because the idols aren't real. But if you're there at the temple participating in the sacrifices, because you're going to get a good cut of meat, maybe your attitude's wrong. He doesn't want you to, because remember Jack was going to get the filet mignon if I recall correctly. That was our illustration.

But the idea is that this is sacrifice to demons or to those that are not God and as believers we don't want to be participating in that. We don't want to be sharers in demons. And in 21, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot participate of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. And he's not talking about potentiality, he's talking about the rightness of the action. You know, it's not acceptable for a believer to be participating in those things. Now the reason why Paul wrote this is what? Why can we guess that Paul had to write verse 21, that you cannot do both?

Because they were doing it. It's like the warning labels that say, don't put your hair dryer in the shower. And you're like, why would you have to say that? Oh no. Someone did that, right? And so Paul is writing to these saints here, and he's saying that's not consistent with who we are. you're the judge, I've reasoned through this with you, I've told you about who you are in Christ, how you take the communion with Christ, and that's because you're identified. And we look back at the Old Testament, the old way, and they took part in the altar because they were identified with God as the nation of Israel to be his bride, and that identification was there. And guess what? That same principle of identification exists with the flesh and worldliness and demons in the temples.

So don't participate. It's inconsistent. So I told you that Paul wasn't mocking them, but he tells them right up front, we're going to reason together, we're going to be logical, we're going to seek this out together, and then he walks them through it. But just in case, just in case they walk away from this and are like, we can still go participate in these temple sacrifices, we get to verse 22.

Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are you His? Are you making Him jealous? I make Jesus jealous all the time. When I walk in sin, that's what He's talking about. You're walking in idolatry, you're walking in sin. Don't provoke Him to jealousy. That's not your relationship with Him.

Are we not stronger than He? Are we? Are we stronger than God? Are we more wise than God? No. So he's tying those things together. He says, okay, God is wise. God is capable. He is strong. He is so strong that he's good at giving you the possibility to resist temptation and see it in the right light of an abiding, beholding position. And then When we see the temptation we have to recognize who that temptation and that idolatry link us to. So the world looks at that idolatry and temptation. I guess I'll close with this illustration. When I lived in Texas at the small company I worked for back in the early days when it was a small company it got bigger.

My co-workers would say, hey Randy, let's go to lunch. And I'd say, okay, where do you want to go? And they would say, I want to go to Hooters. Now I'm not going to tell you whether or not you should go to Hooters, but I had an agreement with my wife that wasn't going to happen. And so every time they'd come into my office and say, do you want to go to lunch? I'd say, I would, but where are you going to go?

And they would always start with Hooters. Every time. The default was Hooters. until they discovered that there were other restaurants that were also not Hooters that I wasn't going to go to. And I won't go listen off all the names because Dallas-Fort Worth has a lot of them.

But the temptation was there, but the agreement and the out was always there. I have an agreement with my wife. But we have the same agreement with the Lord. If we walk in fellowship, I was walking in fellowship with my wife. If we walk in fellowship with the Lord, we have that same out. Hey, this thing is here. No, no. Walk in fellowship with me. And no one will be confused. Randy, why were you walking out of Hooters? I wasn't. That was my doppelganger or something. I wasn't walking out of Hooters. That's not who I am. That's not where my agreement is.

So the last couple sentences on this page, page 4, I'll read to you. He also took a brief passage to give us a context of abiding while being tempted by others to do something that we should not be doing ourselves. Setting our minds on things above should be our default position so that we can be overcomers and not succumbers. And that's really, you know, if there's anything that we get by reading through 1 Corinthians, with all of these wrestling points is that this position of abiding and beholding the Lord is critical.

That's why we get to look at 2 Corinthians 3.18 where he's very explicit about you've got to be beholding the Lord. It's the only way.

So sometimes as believers we hear that at Holly Hills all the time. I can't remember a Sunday I didn't hear about my position and my condition and my need to be abiding at Holly Hills and that's a good thing. But sometimes, just like taking communion every month, it's easy to fall into the pattern of knowing what's the right thing. But Paul is encouraging the Corinthians, and even ourselves as we read his letter, to put some tennis shoes on. Or in my case, I have some cowboy boots on. Any other thoughts or questions? We hit the second bell. Alright, let's close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you that we get to look at this passage and even by revisiting it we get to have fresh eyes and we can come in and we can walk away encouraged knowing that abiding is the way. Abiding is looking to you and it is the out that leads to endurance, not the out that leads to some imaginary place where there's no trials and suffering, but instead growth. We thank you for who we are in you. We thank you that we are together and abiding and sharing and partakers in the communion. And we look forward to digging deeper into that as we go into chapter 11. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.