"Partial Identification," 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Andrew Evans

Well, good morning, my name is Andrew Evans.

Let me welcome you to Church of the Resurrection.

It's great to be with you, great to be opening up God's word with

you. We are coming today to a

challenging passage, a good passage, First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

chapter 10. So let me encourage you to turn

in your Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 10, again in

the Pew Bible, that's on page 900.

And before we get started, let me pray for us.

Father, I praise you that you are God.

Who speaks. Would you speak to us today?

Would you draw us to yourself through your word?

I pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Now here at Church of the

Resurrection, we are nearing the completion of several renovation

projects in our building. The kitchen has most of the

fixtures in it. The elevator is making good

headway from all appearances. From the banging that I hear

during the week the the parish hall, doesn't it look great?

It's we're really close to being done there.

We had some great celebrations there.

So we are getting close. Lord willing, before too long,

all of these will be completed. And when they are done, we will

be free, free, free from the stress of finishing them St.

free from the, the project management.

Our budget will be free of the money that we've spent on it,

the obligated money. But more than that, we will be

free to use these places. Well, well, we just just think

about the elevator. When that elevator is finally

done, people with disabilities will be free to access every

floor of this church. Praise the Lord, what a gift

that will be a great day. Completion brings freedom, But.

But freedom can breed complacency.

Even when all these places are completed, we will need to

steward them well. We'll need to actively watch

them. We'll need to maintain them.

We'll need to clean them. We'll need to fix problems when

they inevitably arise. Freedom for it to be true.

Freedom cannot breed complacency.

And there's a parallel here with our Christian faith.

One of the glorious truths of our faith is the completed work

of Jesus on our behalf. Our salvation doesn't depend on

us adding anything to what Christ has already done for us.

When he was hanging there on the cross and said it is finished,

he meant it is finished. The work is done, all of our

sins are paid for, We are ransomed from the power of

darkness and evil. All we have to do is look to

Christ in faith. This is where the great

Reformation doctrine of solafide by faith alone is pointing us.

We must look not to ourselves, but to the completed work of

Christ by faith for our salvation.

We don't add anything to it. Just look in faith to Christ and

you are free. And this principle of our

freedom has been the animating force, you could say, of

animating principle of Paul's letter over the last couple

chapters. He's telling them I am free in

Christ. Here's how I use my freedom.

I lay down my rights for the sake of others.

I fill up my freedom with mission, and you can too.

My friends in the Corinthian church, my friends at Church of

the Resurrection, you are free. If you are looking to Christ in

faith, you are free. But but your freedom must not

breed complacency. You must not become

overconfident. Presume on your salvation.

Otherwise, just like if you take on an old church building and

and renovate it and then take it for granted, the whole thing

could start to come apart. So Paul's rhetoric here in this

part of the chapter, this part of the book is it's actually

taking a little turn. And it's really interesting to

see how it's taking this turn. He started off this section in

chapter 8 by basically assuming the strength of the Corinthians.

My friends, you are free. You are strong.

Now use your strength and your freedom to help those around

you. But here at the end of Chapter

9, in the beginning of chapter 10, you can, you can almost feel

him sort of leaning in a little bit.

Maybe his voice drops a little bit and he's inviting the

Corinthians to see you may not actually be as strong and as

secure as you think you are. Because overconfidence breeds

complacency. Complacency tolerates sin, and

sin destroys. This isn't just a risk for the

church in 1st century Corinth, though.

This is a risk for us as well. We can identify different

reasons for complacency, perhaps, but I think that many

of them, perhaps all of them, come back to a a

misunderstanding of our freedom. Maybe we think of our salvation

as a kind of key. We just receive it at one point

of time and then we're good to go.

We, you know, we can get through the door at the end of our

lives. So does it really matter what we

do if we just have that key? Maybe we think of our salvation

as making us, you know, respectable.

We're saved. We don't, we don't do certain

things that the pagans out there do.

We see the movies and I'm like, that's crazy, that's wrong.

We might struggle here and there, but gosh, you know, we're

respectable people. Our sins.

Our sins are respectable, respectably small.

Or maybe we take our freedom as a license to indulge.

We've, you know, we've cast off the prudish shackles of our

Puritan forebears and realized that indeed, it is OK to drink

alcohol and enjoy other good things in life.

And so we do. But how easily does a freedom to

enjoy become a license to indulge?

And so we can become not only possessive, but even

self-righteous in our sinful overconsumption.

Our freedom in Christ is a great and a glorious truth, but

overconfidence in that freedom can breed complacency.

Complacency tolerates sin and sin destroys.

This is the context for Paul's words here to Corinth and to us.

His point in this section, to give you a thesis statement, is

this sin will destroy your soul, so flee sin.

Your sin can actually undo all that Christ has done for you or

you think that Christ has done for you.

So my friends, flee sin Paul here in this passage walks the

Corinthians through 8 steps to fleece sin to fleece sin.

So grab your Bible. Let's look at this passage

together. Look at these at this these

eight points. So the first step is to identify

with God's people identify with God's people.

Look at verse one with me, for I do not want you to become to be

unaware, brothers, that our fathers, we're all under the

cloud and all passed through the sea.

Paul here is referring to the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt

when God saved them from slavery.

And I think that Paul here would have started to raise some

questions for them to really grab their attention when he

calls them our fathers. Didn't Christ free us from the

Jewish law? How could they?

How could the Corinthians, particularly the Gentile

Corinthians, be connected to the the Jewish people of the Old

Testament? Paul continues to drive home his

point here. Verse 2.

All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

OK, baptism, it's a Christian, right?

Not exactly a Jewish thing. Jews had a kind of baptism, but

it's not, it's not central. It's really central.

Why is Paul talking about baptism here?

Verse 3? All ate the same spiritual food.

All drank the same spiritual drink.

OK, Paul, I'm getting uncomfortable here.

Food and drink. That's what we do with the

Lord's Supper every every week. Are you saying that they are

doing the same thing that we're doing now?

Are we doing the same thing as them every Sunday?

For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed

them, and the rock was Christ. Now don't get lost in this image

of a floating rock. We can talk about that

afterward. Look at the central point he's

making here. For the Israelites in the

wilderness, it was Christ who was feeding them.

Christ fed them in the wilderness, just like Christ is

feeding his people now. Everything that the Israelites

were experiencing was part of God's salvation plan, and it is

the same salvation plan that we are experiencing today.

Same God, same salvation. The ancient Israelites were just

as much a part of God's people as we are today.

Now, the Corinthian Christians probably felt superior to the

Jews. The Corinthians had knowledge.

They had freedom. These are both true.

But the Corinthians are still receiving the same salvation

from the same God that God began unfolding with Israel millennia

earlier. Israel back then was feeding on

Christ in the future, just like the Corinthians.

And just like we are feeding on Christ and His work in the past.

We all have the same Savior. We must identify with God's

people and not separate ourselves from them.

So that's the first point. Second, we must learn from their

example. Learn from their example.

So our forefathers in the wilderness all had the same

nourishment that we did, right? Baptism, Sacramento, meals,

God's word, all nourishing them and all nourishing us with

Christ. But what does their example show

us? Even though they received that

nourishment, even though they experienced God's salvation,

they fell. This is verse 5.

They were overthrown because of their sin.

God rejected them even though they had experienced its

salvation. And my friends, if that happened

to them, the same could happen to us.

We've experienced an exodus, an exodus from slavery to sin.

So we must learn from them. Verse 6.

Now these things took place as an example for us that we might

not desire evil as they did. Now in premarital counseling,

one thing that we ask couples to do is to create a family tree

each each remember the couple just go look at their family

tree, go interview parents and grandparents if you can, and,

and learn about the, the family history of the spiritual

history, the physical history, the sort of mental, emotional

history. It's a great exercise.

And then they, they give this family tree to the, to the

partner, to the intended. And it's really valuable to know

what the patterns are in our families lives, right?

These things don't dictate to us what our future is, but they

show us where there may be tendencies, they show us where

there may be weaknesses. And so we have to pay attention

to those things. Maybe cancer, maybe an

addiction. You need to pay attention to

those things and maybe take some pre emptive steps against them.

And there's a parallel here between Christians this side of

Christ and the stories of the people of Israel.

They are our family. Their problems are our problems.

We shouldn't merely respect them, but we should learn from

them. Because they are spiritual

ancestors. We should learn from their

successes and their failures the same.

God was at work in them as is at work in US.

Third, we must see sins connections with clarity.

See sins connections with clarity.

This is verses 7 through 10. So Paul here lists 4 failures of

the Israelites in the wilderness.

They were idolaters in verse 7. This is the golden calf

incident. They were sexually immoral verse

8. They put Christ to the test in

verse 9. They grumbled verse 10.

Now these are all serious things.

I think we can agree the list feels a little random though.

Like, why these things, Paul? Why are you talking about these

things? Now, remember the context for

what he's talking about here. Paul is addressing the question

of whether Christians should be able to eat meat that's been

dedicated to idols. He's addressing a matter of food

and drink, and all of these examples that Paul has chosen

here of Israel in the wilderness stem from matters of eating and

drinking, matters of food. This is obvious in the first

example, right? Verse 7, Do not be idolaters as

some of them were. As it is written, the people sat

down to eat and drink. So they were worshipping the

calf and having a party, eating and drinking, having a feast for

the calves. But all the other stories

actually do as well. I encourage you to go back and

look at them. There are numbers 25, numbers

21, and numbers 11, so go check those out.

See the link now. Sometimes eating itself can be

wrong. Exodus 32, the story of the

golden calf. The feasting is in honor of the

golden idol, the golden calf. They shouldn't have been eating

in that way. Eating the food in that context

was wrong, but sometimes eating can actually lead to other sins

as well. Israel ate with Pagan nations,

and they drew them into sin. Israel failed to be grateful for

what they ate, for God's provision in the wilderness, and

so they grumbled and complained. Friends, sin is slick.

It will find a way to slip in. Even things that in the abstract

are not sinful per SE can become twisted, is the example of

Israel here shows. Even something as basic as food

can lead our loyalties away from God.

Sin can connect itself, can attach itself to even good

things, and we must see these connections with clarity.

Dig past the immediate act when you're thinking about something

and think about what's connected to it at the level of the heart.

Is sin twisting something that is good in order to draw you

away from God, cause you to rely more on yourself or on something

else, and not to rely on God? Look for those connections.

See those connections. See sins.

Deviousness with clarity. 4th We must understand the consequences

of sin. What happened to many of Israel

when they sinned? Paul here doesn't mince words.

They were destroyed. Sin led to their destruction,

and I think we are to read that as eternal destruction.

Few people had had such an experience of God's saving power

as Israel, hadn't they? They saw first hand God saving

them. How often do we say I just need

to see God at work, Where is he? They saw him.

But even after experiencing the powerful exodus, that didn't

prevent them from rebelling and ultimately losing the life that

God had given them. My friends, we worship a

gracious God. We are offered boundless,

infinite forgiveness. But this forgiveness is not a

license to sin. God saves us from sin so that we

can live for him in righteousness.

The ongoing presence of sin in our lives should make us

tremble. Now, the stories of Israel are

really dramatic here, aren't they?

You know, 23,000 died in a single day.

God, they tested God, God sent serpents.

The people died, but what happened so rapidly for them can

happen much more slowly for us. Tolerate a little sin here.

Allow, you know, some light idolatry there.

After all, at least I'm not as bad as those other guys.

I'm not doing that. But in that indulgence of sin,

our heart will change. We will become hardened to God

and to his ways. And after a few years of this

living in sin, we will be far from God.

We will be far from trusting God and far from eternally safe.

Faith leads us to following God. Sin leads us to separate

ourselves from God, even for eternity.

These are the consequences of sin.

We must understand these consequences. 5th We must look

with hope to the end of the age. Now verse 11 here is a kind of

hinge in this passage, turning us from the examples of what we

should not do toward what we should do instead.

And here at the end of this verse, he drops in this little

line that we are those on whom the end of the ages has come.

Paul here is pointing us to the way that Christ has inaugurated

the final age. He's inaugurated the end of time

in his death and resurrection. His complete work at the cross

and at the empty tomb has brought about, has inaugurated

this new age, and we are living in that dawn.

We see the glory of what Christ is bringing.

He's bringing peace, life, wholeness, flourishing.

We see that. We even taste that.

And yet we are still standing at the brink and we still feel the

shackles of sin and the pull of temptation in between these two

epochs. And so in Christ, not only do we

see with greater clarity the work that God is doing.

And the goodness of this final age.

But we should also be yearning for him to come and to complete

that work. In a word, Paul here is inviting

us to faith look with hope to the consummation of the end of

the age. 6th Because we have faith in God's work to bring

about this completion. We must turn our eyes away from

ourselves and fight presumption. Verse 12.

Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he

fall. And this verse is actually the

central exhortation of the whole passage.

The Corinthians thought that they were strong, they thought

they were free, they thought they were standing tall, right?

And Paul says, be careful, be careful, Do not presume on your

own strength. There is always the possibility

that we can drift from God. Don't trust in your own

strength. How many examples do we have in

the Old Testament of people who started out so well in their

walk with the Lord and then drifted far from God?

Great King Solomon inherits the Kingdom of David, Asked to have

wisdom from God, which is the best possible thing to ask for.

Starts out so well, and then he slips and slides and falls over

years and years and at the end of his life we have no idea

where he is in his standing with God.

We must not presume on our own strength.

We must stand guard. Fight the presumption.

So for fighting presumption, we are then fighting temptation.

Seventh, fight temptation with God's faithfulness.

Fight temptation with God's faithfulness.

Verse 13 No temptation has overtaken you.

That is not common to man. God is faithful and He will not

let you be tempted beyond your ability.

Sometimes when we're in the throes of temptation, we can

feel like we are just utterly alone, can't we?

That nobody understands the strength of what we're

experiencing? And see where Paul here

redirects our attention. God is faithful.

God will not abandon us. He will not leave us.

So my friends, when you were tempted, don't turn inward, turn

toward God. Remember that God is with you

and will give you more strength, will not give you more than you

can handle. He will give you the strength to

fight. He may stretch you, but you can

always resist. And so, my friends, you can

fight temptation, you can fight sin by drawing it near to God,

by remembering his faithfulness and then fighting, knowing that

he will not abandon you and that in fact he is with you.

Notice here how Paul is not undermining the doctrine of

solafide. Faith alone.

We are saved by faith alone. Even here, even when we're

struggling against sin with all of our strength, we are doing so

with faith. It is faith from first to last.

So trust in God's faithfulness. 8th And finally, we must look

for the way of escape, end of verse 13.

With the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape,

that you may be able to endure it.

We are called to escape sin. We aren't called to just sit in

temptation, hoping that we can endure it.

We are called to act, looking at to how we can get out of

temptation and escape sin. If you're an alcoholic, you

don't go sit at a bar and hope to avoid a drink.

If you're struggling with lust, you don't spend time on your

phone late at night. Leave the bar, put away your

phone. Escape temptation.

Actively look to flee the temptation to sin and look with

the eyes of faith, knowing that God will provide a way out.

Sin is not inevitable, you can act to fight it and God will

provide to you that way of escape if you will take it.

So these are the 8 steps that I see Paul giving the Corinthians

and giving us for how to fight temptation, identify with God's

people through the millennia, learn from their example, and we

learn from them by seeing sins, connections with clarity, and

then understanding the eternal consequences of sin.

We must look with hope to the end of the age.

As we turn away from a presumption about our own

strength, we instead turn to faith in God's faithfulness.

And as we do that, we are looking with the eyes of faith

for a way of escape. This is sort of this passage in

in eight points. Now, I think that there are

broadly three kinds of people who will hear this passage.

Now, one, maybe this is you, the Christian who's, you know,

following Jesus, killing sin in your life, successfully fighting

sin. When you see sin, you repent and

it ends. And this passage says to you,

keep it up, keep going, don't go complacent.

The Lord is with you. Keep looking to him in faith and

keep fighting. And the next person, second

person, is a person who perhaps is very much like the

Corinthians here. You're at peace, you're

comfortable, and you're allowing sin and temptation to creep into

your life. And if that's you hear Paul's

word to you very clearly, your soul is in danger.

Grazing sin in the name of freedom can lead to your

destruction. Repent of your sin.

Fight temptation. Turn away from sin and toward

the life that Christ offers you. You must not presume on the

graciousness of God. One way that we do this is by

confessing our sin. Bring it into the open.

Ask Christians around you to walk with you as you're fighting

sin. The clergy here, we're ready to

walk with you, to hear your confession, to assure you of the

good news of the gospel, and to walk with you as you seek to

kill sin. Now, the third person who hears

this passage is someone who feels stuck and you're desperate

to get out. But you feel stuck in sin.

Like you're like your feet are stuck in quicksand and you just

can't quite get out. You're just stuck.

And you hear the warnings of Paul and you say, I know that

and I'm terrified. Am I going to be destroyed like

Israel? That's the terror in your heart.

This passage meets you in that terror and should encourage you

to fight sin, but to fight sin with hope.

Turn your eyes to Jesus first. Look at all that He has endured

for you. See the temptations He has

endured. See the victory He won for you

at the cross and at the empty tomb, and then fight, knowing

that your victory is secure. Bring God's people into your

fight, not out of shame, but with a hopeful expectation that

God in fact will bring you out. He will deliver you and set you

free. Don't look at your sin with

shame. Look to Christ and then with

God's people. Fight the sin for all of us.

We must look to Jesus no matter where we are.

As we encounter this passage, we must look to Jesus, the founder

and the finisher of our faith. He saves us both from the

condemnation of sin as well as the power that sin has over us.

It's hold. It's slavery.

The German reformer Martin Luther was probably thinking

about this floating rock when he wrote the the first verse to

possibly his most famous hymn, Rock of Ages.

Cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.

Let the water and the blood from thy riven side which flowed be

of sin, the double cure cleanse me from its guilt and its power.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy

Spirit, Amen.