1 Corinthians 10:14-33 Freedom Is Good!

1 Corinthians 10:14-33  Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.  I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.  Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?  And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?  Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.  Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?  Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything?  No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.  You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.  Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy?  Are we stronger than he?  “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial.  “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.  No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.  Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”  If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience.  But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience.  I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience?  If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?  So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.  Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everyone in every way.  

Paul is telling the Corinthians, who are participants in the body of Christ, that they should do all for the glory of God with a focus of bringing the Good News to others.  He is asking them not to seek their own good in life but the good of many, so the people around them might be saved.  Paul’s life demonstrated that he was a faithful disciple.  He dedicated his life completely to God’s will.  As Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  (Matthew 16:24-25)  As did Moses, he had crossed the Red Sea, escaping from slavery to the world.  Now he was leading many people through the desert of life to the Promised Land.  As a dedicated servant of the living God, he reached out to the Gentile world, preaching the Good News of salvation to them.  In doing so, he experienced many hardships and constant threats of death.  However, he ignored his own well-being and became a slave to all people so that they might be restored to their Creator.  Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  (1 Corinthians 9:19)  Now we see him advising the stronger Christians in Corinth to govern their behavior of freedom IN CHRIST for the benefit of the weaker brethren.  Even though free from sin and the expectations of others, they should consider other people in the way they live.  Weaker Christians in the faith might stumble by their freedom, such as eating food given to idols.  These weaker Christians might be having a difficult time disentangling their lives from their old ways of idol worshipping.  The freedom of the more mature Christians might cause others to once again believe in these no-gods as gods and that they should be worshipped.  Also the people outside of the church might consider those in the church who eat food given to idols as hypocrites and their story of only one God to serve as a lie.  Paul understands that true salvation sets people free from the bondage of sin, but he is also exhorting them to use the freedom God has given them wisely and with constraints.   I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial.  “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.  The Corinthian Christians should live their lives for the benefit of others.  If eating food given to idols hurts the conscience of someone else, they should forgo eating anything that is given to idols.  The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”  If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience.  But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience.  I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours.  Paul encourages the Corinthians to consider others before they think of what they can do or not do.  Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.  Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everyone in every way.

Freedom is a necessary awareness in a Christian’s life.  This step of knowing who we are IN CHRIST separates us from a cultish life.  Cults demand people to follow prescribed rules, and any step outside of these rigid rules is condemned.  But Jesus did not come to us to establish rules in our lives and to condemn us.  He came to us to restore us to the grace and mercy of God.  The Corinthians were free from the bondage of sin.  Now they had to figure out how to live circumspectly for the benefit of others who examine their new-born lives.  If they use this freedom unwisely, they can interfere with other people’s dedication to God.  The Pharisees had problems with Jesus because He sat down with the sinners of the world.  They condemned Jesus for such inappropriate activity.  Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.  But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”  Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.   I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  (Luke 5: 29-32)  Jesus had freedom.  He was despised by the cultish Pharisees.  Cultish?  Yes, because their hearts were not right with God.  They were living a life to please their fellow man, maybe other cultish people, but not a life for God, one of mercy and grace.  In the Corinthian church, Paul wants the Christians to consider others before themselves, for others might need a doctor.  If they are weak in faith, they should strengthen their faith by following God’s love for others, to daily sacrifice their lives for the sake of Christ.  However, if a Christian or so-called Christian is living in open sin within the community of believers, boasting about his or her own freedom IN CHRIST, but under the control of a sinful lifestyle, he or she ought to be ostracized.  I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters.  In that case you would have to leave this world.  But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler.  Do not even eat with such people.  (1 Corinthians 5:9-11)  A Christian who claims to be a brother or sister IN CHRIST but continues to eat and drink at the table of the demons openly has to be excluded for he or she brings disgrace on the body of Christ.  When Jesus became serious about how to serve God by eating and drinking of him, many of his disciples left him for they were following him for selfish reasons.  Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.   For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.   (John 6:53-56)  These fleshly disruptive people in the Corinthian church are not weaker brethren, but they are those who do not desire to eat and drink of only Christ in their lives.  They want the benefits of the church without a total commitment to Christ in their lifestyle.  They are not free IN THE LORD but bound by Satan in sin.

When in the world among secular people, we may associate with them freely, eat and drink with them freely.  If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience.  However, if our freedom to eat or drink anything when we bless it with prayer offends a weaker brethren, we should put a stop to our activity.  We should live circumspectly not about our conscience but about the conscience of others.  We are to be considerate of them in our activity.  Our lives are not our own, for we have been bought by a high price, the blood of Jesus Christ.  For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.  And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.  (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)  When we live for Christ, we will seek to do his will.  Our lives will be as a laser beam, straight and powerful.  When we live for Christ totally, we become a light to the world and an enhancement in their lives as salt is to food.  But if we live unto ourselves, we bring darkness to people and not light.  Paul is encouraging the Christian church to bring light to the world and to help everyone live in the freedom of a new born life.  But if they struggle with their former idol worshipping tendencies, then the stronger Christian brethren in the Corinthian church should adjust their lives so the weaker brethren can live successful lives for Christ.  Paul is not saying the weaker brethren’s vision of life should be the same as ours who are strong in the freedom Christ.  No, he is telling the mature Christians to be kind and considerate of those who struggle in this wilderness of life.  The weaker brethren are still functioning under the cultish belief of works as a way to salvation.  So, almost anything can be a stumbling block to them.  Sadly, not relying completely on the fact that salvation is Christ’s work, not their work; it is Christ's righteousness they live within, not their own righteousness.  But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.  He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.  (Titus 3:4-7)  Our eternal life rests in God, not in our efforts.  Yes, freedom is good, but we must not use it in such a way that it abuses others, hampering their faith in the salvation message.  We eat of Christ; He is the bread of life; his blood bought our redemption.  The work is finished.  Let us know Christ as the two gentlemen discovered on the road to Emmaus.  When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.  They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”  (Luke 24:30-32)  When Christ broke the bread, their eyes were opened.  Paul reminds the Christians of Corinth of their lives IN CHRIST.  Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?  And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?  Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.  He tells the Christians in Corinth, live in freedom but also in peace for they are one IN CHRIST, THE BREAD OF LIFE.  May we all consider the body of Christ today.  

   

1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Do not Grumble!

1 Corinthians 10:1-13  For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea.  They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.  They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.  Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.  Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.  Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”  We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.  We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes.  And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.  These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.  So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!  No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.  And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

Under God’s command and direction Moses was called to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt, the kingdom of evil.  The children of Israel had been living in Egypt a long time.   Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years.  At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt.  Because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the Lord for the generations to come.  (Exodus 32:40-42)  After so long, they were acclimated to the Egyptians' way of living.  They even honored the gods of Egypt.  As they left Egypt under the command of Pharaoh because the Egyptians’ firstborn had been murdered by the angel in the night, they carried in their hearts Egypt, depicted by the idols they carried in their satchels.  The Israelites left Egypt, but Egypt was with them all the way through the wilderness.  After three days in the wilderness, they grumbled, justifiably so because of the lack of water, but after a month and a half, they were very dissatisfied with being in the wilderness.  They wished they had stayed in Egypt and died there, adding more years to their captivity.  The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt.  In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.  The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt!  There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”  (Exodus 16:1-3)  Sometimes because of their dissaistfaction with their lives in the wilderness, they even threatened Moses and Aron with death by stoning.  For most of them, their deliverance was Moses’ vision, not theirs.  Egypt had been their lives for centuries and even though they were under the cruel yoke of slavery, it was better to be Egyptians than dead in the wilderness.  They had experienced the deliverance of their physical bodies from slavery by the hand of God through his emissary Moses, but the God of the heart was far from them.  They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.  They were baptized in Moses’ vision for them.  They had seen the glory of God in the plagues that the Egyptians’ experienced.  They saw the Red Sea open up for them, so they could cross through it on dry ground.  They saw the cloud of God’s glory protect them from Pharaoh’s army by settling between them and Pharaoh’s pursuing army.  They experienced this same cloud of God’s glory leading them through the wilderness, yet their hearts were full of unbelief, turning to their idols, even claiming that these no-gods delivered them from Pharaoh’s hands.  The hearts of the Israelites, God’s chosen, had not been changed, only delivered.  Paul says, I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea.  They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.  They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.  Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.  Even though they had experienced God’s mighty hand in their lives, they disappointed God by serving idols and living like the Egyptians.  As Paul describes in Romans 1:29 about the world and its nature: filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.  We see an example of this kind of nature in Egypt, Moses saw two Hebrews fighting.  He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”  (Exodus 2:13)  This fierceness toward a fellow Hebrew emulated the Egyptians fierceness over the Israelites, receiving beatings from their masters.  Moses knew the Israelites were a contaminated people, but God told him to take them out of Egypt, regardless of their hearts’ condition.  They had experienced God’s mighty presence, but their hearts remained impatient and rebellious to the God of creation.

We see in the above focus Paul telling the Corinthians, do not let your hearts stay in Egypt after you are delivered from the captivity of sin.  Let the Holy Spirit transform your hearts to a new beginning in God.  Yes, you are in this wilderness of life; the hot breath of the wilderness is felt everyday in your lives.  But you are a new creature; do not go back into thinking and acting as the world.  Instead, enjoy your freedom in God.  God has provided a new covenant with his people.  As Jeremiah prophesied, This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.  No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.  For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”  (Hebrews 8:10-12)  The Israelites were delivered from Egypt without changed hearts.  Because of that they lived in rebellion all of their existence, both in the wilderness and in the Promised Land.  Sometimes they were obedient to the commands, laws, and decrees that God set before them, but most of the time, we see them living in idol worshipping, rivalry, and disobedience.  The ten tribes who broke off from Judah after Solomon died were carried off first by the Assyrians because of their many sins.  Later, the kingdom of Judah felt the hand of God’s judgment, placing them in the hands of the Babylonian king as slaves in a foreign country.  God removed the Hebrews from their Promised Land because of their incessant wickedness and rebellion to God’s laws.  The Israelites would not stop worshipping Idols; they were rabid in their serving of these no-gods of the pagans around them.  We see this In the days of King Josiah who rules at the end of the Jews' habitation in the Promised Land.  In his day after many centuries of the Israelites living in the land given by God to them, we see the Israelites' unwillingness to obey God's rules, commandments, and decrees that He gave Moses on Mount Sinai.  In Josiah’s time, there is ample evidence of the Israelites’ rebellion to Jehovah who delivered them out of Egypt.  King Josiah was a good king who ruled to honor Jehovah, the God of the Israelites.  In his rule he attempted to cleanse the land of devil worship, idol worship, and cultish behavior.  He removed from the Temple of God articles that the Israelites used to worship Baal, Asherah, the sun and the moon.  He tore down the living quarters of the shrine prostitutes in the Temple.  Throughout Judah he defiled the many pagan shrines where the Hebrews worshipped these no-gods.  He destroyed the shrines that the governor had set up in his courtyard.  He destroyed the altars where the Israelites sacrificed their babies.  He removed from the entrance of the Temple horse statues to honor the sun god.  He also burned the chariots that accompanied these statues.  He tore down the idols that were on the roof of the palace.  He destroyed the altars to these no-gods that were in the two courtyards of the Temple.  He destroyed King Solomon’s shrines that he built for the gods of Ashtoreth, Chemosh and Molech.  He destroyed the golden calf in Bethel.  Josiah tore down the shrines in Bethel and Samaria; he executed the priests of these no-gods.  He got rid of the mediums, psychics, and household gods.  By all these actions, King Josiah tried to cleanse the land of the Jews, but because their hearts had not been transformed, they would return to worshipping these gods of the devils.  A few years after Josiah died, the last of the Hebrews except for the very poor would be carried off by the Babylonians, God’s judgment to a rebellious people.

In today’s focus, we see Paul warning the Corinthians about straying back to their old living standard.  He is telling them that the Israelites who experienced God’s great presence and interaction with them, did not come under God’s authority in their hearts.  They lived the lives of the Egyptians most of their existence.  With stony hearts they rejected the God who chose them amongst all the people on earth.  They would not listen to their God who treated them tenderly.  Hear me, my people, and I will warn you—if you would only listen to me, Israel!  You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not worship any god other than me.  I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.  Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.  “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.  (Psalm 81:8-12)  The old covenant could not change the hearts of the Israelites.  They were so unwilling to follow God that they would not even listen to him.  Paul ran into this situation in Italy as he was telling the Jews of the Good News of God’s redemption plan for them, many of the Jews rejected what Paul was telling them about God’s salvation.  “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your ancestors when he said through Isaiah the prophet: “‘Go to this people and say, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.  ”For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.  Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’  “Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”  (Acts 28:25-28)  Now we see in our focus for today, Paul talking to the Corinthians, a Gentile people.  People with open ears.  Paul is warning them that God’s chosen would not keep their ears open to the ways of the Lord, their God.  And because of that, they fell away living in idol worship and in the decay of the world.  But we know, God has presented these Corinthians with a new work, done under a new covenant, a covenant that changes hearts, not just the way people live or present themselves.  No longer are people to worship the way they live, how they look or their customs.  Cultish people live by looks and presentation so people can readily identify them as belonging to a group.  Jesus castigated the  Pharisees because this was their intention before the people.  You knew a Pharisee by how they looked and presented themselves.  “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  Blind Pharisee!  First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.  (Matthew 23:25-26)  We who are alive IN CHRIST have a new cup, one that has been cleansed.  Jesus said it is a born again life.  We are not under the old cloud that covered the Israelites; we have the presence of the Spirit inside of us.  He only occupies a clean cup.  Paul is telling the carnal Christian be careful how you walk: present the new cup, not the old crusty cup of the old fleshly man or woman.  Live a life dependent on God’s strength and not your own.  For if you do, you will not fall into the ways of the old man or woman; that man or woman is dead because of Christ’s redeeming work.  Consider the old flesh as dead.  Under God’s transforming life, when you are tempted, know he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.  Not your way, but God’s way.  His eternal work is already IN YOU, the cross has paid for every temptation that you will run across.  It is not your work, but it is his work that is efficacious.  So trust in the cross; it has already paid your way to eternal life.  Blessed be the name of the Lord! 

            

  

      

 

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1 Corinthians 9:19-27 Get a Crown that Lasts!

1 Corinthians 9:19-27  Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.  To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.  To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.  I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.  I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.  Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?  Run in such a way as to get the prize.  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.  They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.  Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.  No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.        

In the above focus, Paul expresses how he runs the race of his new life IN CHRIST.  Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?  What prize is Paul seeking?  He is seeking eternal peace with God, to hear God say to him, “Enter into my rest my good and faithful servant."  Paul is not running the course of his one and only life to hear the praises of men, to receive their accolades, their honor, their gifts.  He is competing hard for the praises of God.  I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.  No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.  He understands that his faith IN CHRIST and in the works of Christ transformed him into a new creature, a born-again life.  He is no longer in the old man’s skin; he is now covered with the skin of new life.  Even though he is in the fleshly body of a man, Paul desires all people to know that he is living a life that emanates from God, a God of love.  He no longer follows the dictates of the law, attempting to be pleasing to God through works of his own.  No, HE IS FREE; his freedom originates in Christ Jesus and his work on the cross.  His good works could never win favor with a righteous and holy God.  Everlasting life with God demands complete holiness; not a residue of sin anywhere can be found in eternity.  Yes, free in Christ, at home with God himself is Paul’s inheritance.  The law that once bound him to the treadmill of good works has been abandoned in Paul’s life.  His futile attempt to please a righteous and holy God through his works has been put aside by him.  He now with great confidence can say, there is now no condemnation for those who are IN CHRIST JESUS, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  (Romans 8:1-4)  If Paul does not live by the engine of the law, then what power propels his life to be at peace with God?  What power source does he activate to please the Creator?  What is the template of his life?  The love of God for his creation is his source of power, love that has no restraints.  We see the Pharisees bound by good works criticizing Jesus for celebrating with a mixed crowd of sinners at Matthew’s house.  While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.  When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  (Matthew 9:10-13)  For the righteous Pharisees, Jesus was interacting with the scum of the world, the losers within the society of men.  They possessed no love for this kind of people.  Why hang with them, why laugh and smile in their company?  Why enjoy a glass of wine with them?  Jesus, don’t you realize who they are?  James designated this kind of lack of love as sin.  No matter how well you keep the law and its regulations, yet contain favoritism for some over others, you are the worst kind of sinner.  As far as God's evaluation of you, you might as well have broken every law that God has ever commanded.  If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.  But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.  For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  (James 2:8-10)  These supposedly righteous observers and critics of Jesus were under God’s heavy hand of judgment.  

In the above focus for today, we see Paul determined to care for all kinds of people.  He wishes for them to find Christ, to discover God by faith in Jesus Christ.  I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  Paul, the former law-bound Pharisee, was now a man possessed by the love of God for all people.  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.  To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.  I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.  In some sense, he was a chameleon, willing to alter his beliefs and behaviors to please others so that he might be successful in winning others to Christ.   I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.  We also see this kind of behavior in Christ.  He ministers to many kinds of people.  Because of this, the Pharisees were critical of his lifestyle. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’  But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”  (Matthew 11:19)  But the results prove the wisdom of his choice of lifestyle: Jesus met with all kinds of people.  He healed many, fed many, taught many; large crowds followed him everywhere.  If He would have been selective in his associations, He would not have had such a huge impact on the Jewish society and today in the world.  Jesus and Paul were motivated by God’s love for people and they were fulfilling the law of Moses completely.  Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  (Matthew 22:37-40)  Paul went to the weak in faith and in body.  He brought them strength, encouragement, and healing.  The works of his new life IN CHRIST followed him everywhere, even in jail.  In Philippi, after an earthquake, the prisoners’ chains fell off of them, setting them free to escape, but Paul encouraged them not to run away, but to stay where they were.  The jailer feared that his prisoners had escaped.  The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.  He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”  They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”  (Acts 16:29-31)  We see the jailer and his household saved because Paul and Silas were in the jail, identified with the weak, the no-accounts of society.  God had placed him in that jail so that he could save some, the jailer and his household for sure, but maybe some of the prisoners were saved who experienced the whole scene.  These prisoners heard the simple message of redemption.  As Jesus said,  Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.  (John 5:24)  We might even assume that some of those prisoners who were eventually freed from jail because of their sentences being up, walked out of that jail possessing a new life IN CHRIST.  Paul understood the power of God; he knew the work of the Holy Spirit in restoring people to be right with God, so his message to all people was Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.

On the day of judgment, Jesus will separate the sheep from the goats.  The sheep are the redeemed who lived a life as Paul lived, one of service to God.  The sheep lived a life under the banner of God’s love for ALL PEOPLE.  Jesus Christ, the eternal shepherd, will separate the sheep from the goats.  He knows his sheep, they are part of his fold.  He places the goats in one place and his own sheep in another place.  Because Jesus is blessed by God, so are his followers, come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.   For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’  (Matthew 25:34-36)  Because Jesus is blessed by God, his fold is blessed by God, for God loves his Son.  The sheep follow their shepherd; they know his voice.  He has them lie down in green pastures, in his security, and He refreshes them with the water of eternal life.  The sheep do not always have an easy life as Paul discovered.  Sometimes we would not define our lives as lying in green pastures or by cool waters.  But God defines our lives, not us.  Paul did everything to benefit others in his life; he became a slave to all people for their benefit and for God’s glory.  Jesus revealed clearly the kind of life he desired for his followers.  He wrapped a towel around his waist and proceeded to wash his disciples' feet.  He was illustrating that He was the servant to all people.  Peter protested and said he would not allow his master to wash his feet.   Then Jesus said to him, if I do not serve you by washing your feet, you have no part in me and subsequently no part in my my commission for you to go into the world serving others.  Friends around this breakfast table, the message of serving is for you as it was for Paul, Peter, and the disciples.  You must serve all, not determining who is worth serving and who is not worth serving.  In the Old Testament we see three women who probably would not have been worth serving when considering their background, their ethnicity; two were even under God’s judgement such as Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute.  God had told the Israelites to kill all Canaanites.  However because of her faith in the God of creation, as with the Greek Philippi jailer, Rahab's whole family was delivered from destruction.  She became an ancestor of Jesus.  Then there is Bathsheba a Hittite woman.  God ordered the destruction of the Hittites, for they were residents of Canaan, but Bathsheba, the Hittite, who David took illegally for himself, stealing her from her husband became the mother of King Solomon.  Finally, a Moabite woman, not part of God’s chosen people is selected by God to be the great-grandmother of David, whose kingdom will reign forever through Jesus Christ.  These three women are not God’s chosen Israelites, but they are part of God’s kingdom as the redeemed.  As Paul ran hard to get a crown that will last forever, friends let us run as Paul ran.  Let us be with the weak, the hurting, the tired, the weary of life.  They need us to be where they are, for we have the bread of life and the refreshing water from the eternal well of life: Christ Jesus!  Share what God has given you today and He will increase your supply.