Battle of the gods - 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Text: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Main idea:
True christianity lives a life of community and vigilance, as we understand the dangers of the temptations that surround us in the world, as well as our own inner weakness. Therefore, we learn to lean into the faithfulness and presence of God as our hope and strength.
Outline:
1. Just because you are among God's people, does not mean you are safe.
2. Your soul is always under attack to desire evil and serve idols.
3. Learn to continually rely on God's faithful power and presence.
Application:
• Do you have a healthy self awareness about the dangers that your heart faces every day?
• What are the biggest sources of sinful desire in your life today?
• Is it part of your spiritual growth to expose idols in your heart? Do you welcome fellow believers to help you in this process?
• Is God your source of greatest comfort? Do you turn to the faithfulness of God in the midst of struggles and battles with sin?
Scripture references:
• Exodus 32:1-5
• James 1:14-15
• 1 John 5:21
• Ezekiel 14:4-5
• Ephesians 2:1-6
• Ephesians 6:10-14
• Romans 8:31-35
Main ideas:
• idolatry
• spiritual danger
• self awareness
• evil desire
• God's faithfulness
• spiritual strength
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Read text
We can easily be tricked about the condition of our souls because we are surrounded by God and his work.
One of the greatest challenges of the church is christians who don't live as christians.
and yet this was warned from the beginning.
We can be naive about the condition of our souls.
This is the naive condition that Paul confronts in chapters 8-10.
He wants the Corinthians to see that real christianity is not a faith that is determined by personal needs and personal freedoms. True christianity is a faith that actively understands the spiritual dangers that always surround us, and it is a faith that responds to that danger by embracing a lifestyle of communal vigilance. We live as a body of believers as we fight sin. And we adjust our spiritual lives to the glory of God and to the blessing of others.
Truth is never give to the individual in an isolates state. Truth is given to be digested in a community of disciples who are diligently learn to battle sin and glorify God together.
The people in Corinth were naive about the relationship between the world and the church. This is why they had a lot of different sin issues in their church - sexual immorality, selfishness, pride, broken marriages.
On top of this, some of their people were openly going to pagan temples and participating in the feasts that took place there, as well as openly buying meat that was sacrificed to idols.
Their main argument was that "idols are not real" so we have nothing to fear from these temples. Also in God we are free from the law and we don't need to limit our actions by what bothers other christians.
Paul demolishes these arguments in two steps:
• chapters 8-9 he says your Christianity is all wrong if its focused on you and your own well being. True
christianity is focused on the beauty of Jesus and the love of others. It is driven to serve others, to build others up with the truth.
• chapter 10 he says - you are wrong because you are naive about the spiritual dangers that surround you.
1. Just because you are among God's people, does not mean you are safe.
"Now I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless God was not pleased with most of them, since they were struck down in the wilderness."
Paul starts with recounting the story of the people of Israel, and in this whole text, he sets up a spiritual parallel between the people of Israel and the church.
Now its interesting how Paul sets up the story of Israel through the two practices of baptism and communion.
"baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea..."
"ate the spiritual food and drink..."
And then he drives deeper the similarity by saying:
"For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that was Christ..."
Of course there is a big difference between the OT and NT - they had a theocracy, a nation state that was rooted in worship. They had the laws and sacrifices that were the means by which they drew near to God.
We live on this side of the cross and Gods plan of salvation through Jesus. We have the victory of Jesus and calls us to new life in him.
But there is also a massive parallel and similarity. The foundational principles of the stories of the Old Testament are the same: God saved sinners who were not looking for him or worthy of his grace.
The purpose of the OT laws was not dead religion - it was love to God and a mission to make God known in the world.
Paul wants to emphasize that similarity. The people of Israel were saved by God's grace. They were shown his power. They were sustained and fed by him. They experienced God's presence.
And yet - MOST of them died in the desert for their evil and thier unbelief.
"5 NeverthelessGod was not pleased with most of them, since they were struck down in the wilderness."
Healthy self awareness is one of the most difficult things to cultivate - primarily because we don't LIKE to pay attention to our most important weaknesses.
We can easily be naive about the condition of our soul because we are surround by the church and are doing lots of christian things.
We can be tricked into thinking that the enemy is "out there" in the world, the progressives, the liberals, the fundamentalists, the right, the left....
And we become totally blind to the very real and present dangers right in front of us.
2. Your soul is always under attack to desire evil and serve idols.
"6 Now these things took place as examples for us, so that we will not desire evil things as they did. 7 Don’t become idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to party. 8 Let us not commit sexual immorality as some of them did, and in a single day twenty-three thousand people died. 9 Let us not test Christ as some of them did and were destroyed by snakes. 10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and were killed by the destroyer. 11 These things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come. 12 So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall."
Verse 6 gives us a very incisive picture of the true danger.
"so that we will not desire evil things as they did..."
It doesn't matter how much you are surrounded by the christian world and the works of God - the true battle ground is your heart - and your heart aways carries a brokenness, a twistedness, that desires evil things.
This is what is meant that we still live "in the flesh" - even though we are christians redeemed by Jesus, we still have the remaining influence of the sin nature.
Paul launches into a series of commands, and its important to see here how they are interconnected. I don't think these commands and warnings are given here at random.
The first one kicks it off and sets the tone here, and its very interesting..
"Don't become idolaters, as some of them were..."
This is a really interesting command - how can christians become idolaters?
This is important to not in the context of idol temple feasts, and as the corinthians, who definitely DID NOT believe in the power of the idols - were going to those feasts - and to them, Paul is warning, don't become idolaters!
They did not believe in the power of the idols, and it is because they didn't believe in the power of idols that they were most likely to become idolaters themselves.
How can christians become idolaters??
How does anyone become an idolater?
Exodus 32:1-5
"When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make gods for us who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!”
2 Aaron replied to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the gold rings that were on their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from them, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into an image of a calf.
Then they said, “Israel, these are your gods, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!”
5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of it and made an announcement: “There will be a festival to the Lord tomorrow.” 6 Early the next morning they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented fellowship offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to party."
Notice here, when they made the golden calf, they did NOT think they were going away from the God who brought them out of Egypt.
Notice the phrase "....festival to the Lord..." - this is the specific name of the God who lead them, the God of the Bible.
They didn't think they were going away from God, rather they were rebranding, redefining God based on what they felt and desired in that moment.
Here, I think we see the connection between the opening warning given in verse 6 -
"...so that we will not desire evil things as they did..."
The key to idolatry is evil desire, not statues of gods. This explains pagan idolatrous religious - how do people worship a rock?
Answer, its not the rock they are worshipping - its their own desires. Any pagan and human religious system appeals to the evil desires of the human heart - thats why it works.
"7 Don’t become idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to party."
Party: sexual partying and revelry
They wanted security and they wanted pleasure. And they follow those desires to arrive at idolatry.
Evil desire grows into an idol that controls our lives.
James 1: 14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.
One of the main ways Scripture speaks of the mechanism of sin, of how sin works in the human heart is in the terms of idolatry. That is why Paul is writing to christians and he is warning them not to become idolaters, even as they don't believe in the power of other fake religions.
The truth is that idolatry takes many different forms in the human heart. Idolatry is seen in the actual practice of bowing down to statues. And Idolatry is also seen in the human heart when we give in to an evil desire and that evil desire begins to control our lives.
Both kinds of idolatry are fueled by evil desire.
What is an idol?
Anything that controls our desires and behaviors away from the purposes of God and his kingdom.
1 John 5:21
21 Little children, guard yourselves from idols.
Ez. 14:4-5
"‘This is what the Lord God says: When anyone from the house of Israel sets up idols in his heart and puts his sinful stumbling block in front of himself, and then comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will answer him appropriately. I will answer him according to his many idols, 5 so that I may take hold of the house of Israel by their hearts. They are all estranged from me because of their idols.’"
Evil desire, when followed and obeyed, grows into an idol that controls our lives.
Here is where I think the different commands in this passage weave together.
Idolatry works in our lives as evil desire snakes its way through multiple departments of our lives to weave it all into one tangled mess:
• sexual immorality
• testing Christ
• grumbling
Sources: (Ephesians 2:1-6)
• Internal - the flesh
• Social - the world
• Spiritual - the devil
How to spot an idol:
• An idol controls your desires and your time.
• An idol sets up rules and laws for you to follow.
◦ If only you do this/get this...
◦ The only way to be happy is to...
• An idol promises fulfillment and redemption in your life that only God can give.
An idol can be an evil thing or it can be a good thing twisted by evil desires.
An Idol is anything that controls our desires and behaviors away from the purposes of God and his kingdom.
Example:
• Family is a good, but it can be twisted by my evil desire for loyalty and security at all costs.
• Work is important, but it can become a life dominating power force, that almost feels like its forcing you to play by its rules even though you know its not always right.
• Comfort and rest is good, but when i see that I am cutting corners to decrease time with kids in Scripture and prayer...
◦ When you see that your allegiance to something is making you do things that you don't think are right but feel like you have no choice - when you are obeying any rules that are outside of God's rules
◦ idols can set up complex networks of rules and expectations in our hearts and lives
"Let us not be unaware...let us not be naive..."
"12 So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall. "
Are you aware of the battle that rages every day for your soul? Are you naive about the line between the kingdom of God and the evil system of idolatry that surrounds you today?
3. Learn to continually rely on God's faithful power and presence.
13 No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.
We are always surrounded by enemies that want to take our souls captive.
The first step to battling the dangers of idolatry in our hearts is awareness. Don't be naive.
the second step is to learn to rest and depend upon God.
"But God is faithful..."
battling the gods means leaning on the faithfulness of God
Let your heart rest in his faithfulness, his presence, his care for you.
When we learn to rest in God, our heart learns to tie all our deepest desires to him, not to the lies of the flesh, the world or the devil.
God doesn't just want your obedience. He wants your trust, your heart - he wants to be your one and only strength and comfort.
How do we know he is faithful?
Romans 8:31-35
31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? 33 Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. 34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. 35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ?
Proud people who think they stand are people who are not acknowledging the presence of security of the Father who watches and keeps us.
He is the Shepherd of our souls.
His is our Father. He allows us to be challenged. But these challenges are a training ground for our faith. When you are tempted and challenged - see it for what it is - its the training ground of your faith. We are all weak and we all need help and we learn that as we are pressed down on all side by life, by our flesh, by the world and by the devil.
God is faithful.
He provides a way through. Notice, he DOES NOT take away all your struggles.
Rather he provides a way of escape "so that you may bear it...."
Ephesians 6:10-14
"10 Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. 13 For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand. 14 Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist..."
You greatest victory is NOT that you have no battles, but that in the midst of the battles you learn to stand by resting and being strengthened in the Lord.
You learn to expose your idols. You learn to not bow down to the false ideas and false promises. You learn to stand firm by exposing your evil desires and robbing them of their power.
We destroy idols by learning to stand firm in the midst of the lies that come at us.
Application:
• Do you have a healthy self awareness about the dangers that your heart faces every day?
• What are the biggest sources of sinful desire in your life today?
• Is it part of your spiritual growth to expose idols in your heart? Do you welcome fellow believers to help you in this process?
• Is God your source of greatest comfort? Do you turn to the faithfulness of God in the midst of struggles and battles with sin?