1 Cor 10:14-33 | July 12, 2026 | Adam Richardson

Thank you, Jackie.

As we get into the text today, do want to highlight we just came out of the nine o'clock hour.

This July is a workshop.

We're talking hitting hot topics.

Last week we hit rest and sabbath.

How do you do that in a 24-7 world?

This week we hit masculinity.

Is it toxic or helpful?

Next week we're gonna do AI.

And then the next week is Catholicism, friends, families, or foes.

So uh we'd love to see y'all down here at 9 o'clock next week.

Join us.

And also while we're talking about uh equipping, um uh the life groups, thank you piler for the reminder that life groups uh sign-ups are now open.

And if you are in a group and you're wondering, do I sign back up from my own group?

Yes, it just helps us.

If you'll just if you know you're in a group, you love your group, you click on it, just redo that.

Um it helps, it it just it confirms what we think we know, but we don't sure we know.

So help us do that.

That would be great.

As we get into the text today, I want to, you know, you've probably seen the magnet on somebody's fridge, maybe your own, do everything for the glory of God.

And that's actually from this passage.

And some of you and many of you have actually asked me in the past, what does that even mean?

What do you do all things for the glory of God?

How do you do that?

Um, it's a big deal.

Um, when the Westminster Divines gathered in England during the uh, you know, the the second century of the Reformation, they they literally led with this.

So let's uh I guess I can do this.

Look at that.

All right.

So the Confession of Faith, that's this book right here.

Um, and this one is actually this my copy is from 1658, but it's only the second edition, you can see up there.

I didn't get the first edition from 1645.

But that was actually on purpose because the guy I did my PhD, Thomas Manson, he actually put his introduction in the second edition.

So I've got that here.

That's why I wanted it.

But anyway, uh the uh the text I wanted to show you what they said.

What is the most important thing about life?

What is the most important thing about being human?

And this is what they said.

The literally the first question of the Westminster Catechism says this uh for all you Presbyterians out there.

Um what is the chief and the highest end of man?

You see that?

What is the chief and highest end of man?

And the answer is man's chief and highest end is to glorify God and to and fully to enjoy him forever.

Now that sounds strange coming out of the Puritans, you know, you think that uh one person defined Puritanism as the the um absolute fear that somebody somewhere is having fun.

That is not true.

Uh that they believed actually at their core, and they put it in print and stood behind it, that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

And the beautiful thing about that, if you kind of drill down on what they said, is that that is not two things but one thing.

It is the same thing that we glorify God by enjoying him.

And so uh there is so much about honoring the image in which we were made, which brings us joy, satisfaction, fulfillment.

And that's what this passage is about.

It is here to remind us why we were made.

What is our purpose, and then how have we gotten it wrong with idols, and how can we get it right with God?

Uh so here's here's the magnets that you may have seen, whatever you do to the glory of God.

And and that's where the Puritans got it right is that all of life, it's not just worship and prayer and Bible study that's about glorifying God.

It really is all of life, and that's what Paul is addressing today.

Now, um, you'll need a tool to understand the force of the passage.

So I'm going to give you a tool that's been helpful for me.

Here's the tool.

It comes from uh a story of Jesus healing in Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Uh you'll remember that Jesus took a man who was blind outside the village.

He prays for him once, and he says, Do you can you see?

Jesus asks, and the man says, I see men as trees.

So it's like some kind of a partial healing.

I see vague things, but I can't see clearly.

So Jesus prays for him a second time.

And then he says, Can you see?

And he says, I see clearly.

And that statement, I see men as trees, that is so helpful and has been helpful to me to understand world religions, philosophies that divert from God, that they can feel and sense uh that there's something true and they're in the ballpark, but they can't tell what it is.

So it's like the famous illustration that Buddhists will use about the uh the spiritual truth being like an elephant, right?

So one man hugs, touches the leg of the elephant and says, Well, an elephant's like a tree.

And another man touches the tail and says, an elephant's like uh, you know, a feather.

Another one touches the trunk, an elephant's like a rope, one touches the tusk and says, an elephant's like a spear.

And this is sort of an uh apologetic for the fact that all of them are right.

It is like all these things, and there's no one way to see the elephant.

But it breaks down on two levels.

The two core problems with this are one, it's not a rope or a tree.

It may be like those things or have elements of those things, but it's an elephant, which is different from a tree and a rope and a steer and a feather.

And the second thing, and I think the more important thing, what is required to understand the truth of this?

A seeing person, because someone who sees the elephant and says, I see clearly.

Because the blind people all around the elephant who can't quite tell what it is, need a seeing person who sees clearly, and that's what God has given us in his word.

We see clearly.

So there's ministries and seeing clearly.

And that's the passage, the key to the passage today.

This is the tool I think that will help us.

We don't take idol worship seriously in our modern lives because I think we don't understand it.

It all started for me a few months ago.

Well, I guess back in uh back in Cambridge, I visited a Sikh temple, and um I'll show you this uh image.

This is not from Cambridge, it's a different Sikh temple, but you see the holy book they have there, it's in the shrine.

They don't think that book is just a book, they think that book is a living, almost an embodiment, an animation of the God itself.

And here's what I experienced a few months ago.

Uh a friend of mine and I, Jack Cawthon, we went down to the Hindu temple to uh experience a worship service there.

And so here it is.

This is my these are my photographs.

Um, these are their idols, these are their gods they worship.

This is some of the gods they worship.

They have millions of gods, but here's a few of the core ones, the the best ones, I guess.

Uh sort of a close-up.

And what's interesting about this, um, see if I can keep going.

So there's uh Colton talking to our our guide who received us.

He was uh a layman and was uh involved in the worship and sort of walked us through what was happening at any given moment because it was all in Hindi and we didn't really uh we don't speak Hindi.

And but we could tell what was you know that there was there was homage going on, there was an offering going on, there was other things.

Um and and and then he was speaking to the gods there, and the the children were listening.

In the end, this is what was so interesting, and I think what we don't understand the idols in this temple over on Second Luke Road, and in every temple around the world, are not wood and stone.

Nobody's worshiping wood or stone, they're worshiping these things as a living embodiment of a God behind it, even in the ancient world, so like the Nile, you think of the sun god Ra, nobody worshipped the sun as, oh son, you're awake again.

No, nobody did that.

Even the Egyptians were like, okay, there's a God behind it, and this is his physical emanation, right?

Men as trees.

Is it true that the sun is uh a physical manifestation of God?

Well, sort of in a way, in the creator God made a sun, and in the heavens he pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion.

Like God did this, and so there's a there's a there's a bit of truth to that.

But here's what they believe about the idols, and this is they they they're idols, and this is why Paul takes it so seriously, and I'm gonna tell this story, but uh, this is if you don't grasp this, we cannot grasp the weight of this passage, and really the weight for our own hearts, because we have our own idols that I'll get to.

They perform a ritual over these idols that takes multiple days.

It's called Pranapratishta.

And what happens is it is a ceremony that involves purification, invocation, and infusion of the God's life energy itself.

So it starts with purification and preparation.

So the idol is purified, it's made and then purified by holy waters, herbs, it's covered in milk to completely sanctify this uh this physical object.

And priests who are doing this undergo days of mental preparation, prayer, fasting, and chanting to prepare themselves for this uh ceremony of consecration.

Then, when that step is over, there's another step called the invocation.

The priests ask, invoke the specific deity behind this image to descend and accept this physical form through particular dedicated mantras.

At that moment or point, there's an infusion of life.

The priest places his right hand on the idol while placing his left hand on his own heart, and through specific mantras, this is supposed to channel the life of the God through the priest into the object.

Then the priest touches all the parts, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the hands, the feet, and brings the being to life.

And there's this kind of a climactic moment at the end when the priest, uh it's called opening the eyes.

And in this moment, the priest uses kind of a golden needle or a stem with honey or a mirror, even, to symbolically open the deity's eyes, giving it divine vision into our world.

And now the priest understands or believes that the God is in this being and looking at him.

In this moment, this was after the worship service, you see the attendant to the right of the curtain, they close the curtains, they have another ceremony where they put, they bring food, and they and I was asking him, What are you doing with this food?

And they said, We're gonna take this to the idol and to feed it, and then we'll take what's left and consume it in a holy place.

And I thought, this is gonna be interesting.

So they take the food in.

You know, we are kind of waiting outside the curtain for this private meal because the deity needed privacy.

The food comes back out, and it's all still there.

And I said, not hungry or like what?

And and uh he's like, oh no, he consumed the food, he consumed the spiritual essence of the food and left the physical shell for us.

This is where it gets interesting.

And we are now the the offering that we brought to the God was received, consumed, given back to us, and now the God has invited us to eat the rest of this meal together with him as his guest, and to consume this holy food in his presence in honor of his lordship in our lives.

Now, I didn't eat the meal, but they gave me a cookie and I took it and ate one in the car, and then I gave the other one to Heather and didn't tell her what it was happening, so she's fine.

Because it says, only if someone says to you, that was offered to an idol, but I didn't tell her.

No, I I don't know about the cookie, I don't know where it came from, but it gets even more interesting in the Greco-Roman context.

This is the Hindu context, but you can see how seriously they take idol worship.

Because we might wander in and go, oh, it's no big deal, it's just whatever, but that's not how they view it.

And if you're in there paying homage, and a lot of the service was them prostrate on the floor, completely prone, and then getting up and then lying down completely prone multiple times.

And imagine us kind of being in there, like, oh, this is kind of what people do, we'll just do that with you.

Imagine what that would do, how that would feel to them, and what witness that would give to the others that we are participating in this.

And the word here, when it says participating, we'll come back to it in a minute, is it's actually fellowshipping, right?

Fellowshipping with this.

So I want to quickly move through the Greco-Roman context because there's some uh I want to get back to our idols.

But the the the Greco-Roman world had the same ancient, isn't it?

It's interesting, they had the same ancient ritual of purifying the idol.

The the priest would they would create the idol, they would purify it, they would um they would vivify it, if you will, and then uh and then awaken it.

But there was an additional step in the uh the in the in the Greco-Roman world that actually they didn't go through here.

The priest would go out, they would take the idol and the craftsman out of the village, and they would take a wooden sword, and they would the craftsman would set down the idol and they would take the wooden sword and chop symbolically, not chop off his hands, but chop at their hands, and then tie them behind the back and go through a ceremony by which the craftsman renounced making it and said, I did not make this idol, it made itself, and they sever the human tie between the idol and humanity so as to, I guess, be a better dwelling place for a God that was not made by human hands.

And so they literally deny making it, even though they did.

Which, by the way, you know, we're going, that's ridiculous.

Our modern world does that.

Our scientists tell us all the time, not all scientists, thankfully, there's many Christian scientists who know better, but scientists many say, we made ourselves.

Okay, any normal person knows this didn't just happen by itself, like you know, uh the the the idea of the watch, you know, that you walk up on the beach and you see the watch on the beach, and you just say, Oh wow, look what the tides and the currents created from scrap metal down there.

No, there's a watchmaker.

So we can't sever the tie between creation and the creator, but we try.

Anyway, um, this is the seriousness by which the this is the context in which Paul is speaking to that they took idol worship.

Now, I'm gonna actually skip to the back half of the passage which Jackie read and jump into the text because this is where we want to pick up.

Paul in here talks about three areas, two in which it's no big deal, you can participate, it's not a big deal, but one it is.

One is a big deal, and it's actually over the line.

And these are the two that are okay.

Here we are, verse 23.

Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.

Everything is permissible, but not everything is constructive.

Nobody should seek his own good but the good of others.

So Paul's kind of bringing everything full circle.

He says, Yes, we are free in Christ.

Because they were like, Aren't we free?

Aren't we free from the law?

And they're like, Yes, we're free from the law.

He's saying, Yes.

But just because it's legal doesn't mean it's wise.

Any parents here said that?

Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's wise.

I mean, you can stay up all night and never sleep and just go back to work the next day.

Okay, that's legal.

It is not wise.

Uh when I get off work at five o'clock, I can do what I want.

I'm an adult.

I can go bowling, I can drive to Montana, or I can go home.

Okay, one of those options is wise.

And so it's like um, you know, not everything that's permissible is good.

So he's just starting, he's leading with that and says, so let's not seek our own good, but the good of others.

Let's use our power for the good of others.

We spoke about that in the last hour.

So now he mentions these two environments, 25 and 26.

Don't worry about eating meat sold in the market.

If you go to the market and there's meat, because what happened was in the ancient world, the pagans would bring the meat to the temple and it would have three divisions.

Part of my meat is consumed in the ritual there, in the worship.

Part of the meat is given to the priest for their payment.

And a third, if there's meat left over, often there was, these are big animals, they would take it to the market and sell it and recoup some of the loss.

So, and when you're in the market, you're like, man, I wonder if this meat was sacrificed.

Is this like, is this like uh Harry's thing that he just you know did over here, or is this Bob's thing that just came from his backyard?

You know, like which is this meat?

And Paul's saying, look, don't get superstitious, you don't have to worry, it's just meat.

Buy it and eat it.

Because guess what?

Guess who made the meat that's both in the backyard and was sacrificed at the temple?

The Lord.

That's right.

God made everything.

And so don't worry about it.

And then don't get superstitious.

Don't think because it was, you know, it had some history to it, that now that's going to impact you.

No, it can't.

The earth is the Lord's, everything in it, you are free, go buy some meat.

So when you go to food line, you don't have to wonder, like, okay, uh, what are the like tax practices that craft foods?

Like, are they are they okay?

Like, or you know, what are the what are the policies you know behind you know uh the the tuna cans?

Or you don't have to worry about where it came from.

You can buy it, you can eat it, you're okay, you're safe, right?

The earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

Second thing, now, not in the market, you're in a home.

Verse 27.

If some unbeliever invites you to a meal, so you now this is a non-believer, this is essentially uh not essentially, ostensibly a pagan, right?

Um, and they invite you home, do you know, eat what's put before you, even though it may have some history, it may not, we don't know.

You don't have to ask, you don't have to care.

The main thing that you're doing in that moment is the second commandment, which is what that Jesus gave us?

Loving your neighbor.

And you are there, you are present, you are uh demonstrating the glory of God by honoring this uh this friend of yours.

And if someone says to you, he says, now, but but if someone says to you, hey, it was offered to an idol, don't eat it.

Why?

Um, if it was a non-believer, or then that person is probably bragging about the fact that it was given at the temple, and now you're kind of back to square one, and they're assuming that this is kind of a leftover vestige of their worship, and now you're fellowshipping with and supporting that.

So he says, if they're just serving a meal, eat it.

But if he says, oh, this was sacrificed to an idol, that's a different category.

Now you're in a fellowship meal, a worship fellowship meal with the, and so don't do that.

If a Christian says it, because it doesn't say if it's a non-Christian or a Christian, if a Christian says it, probably they're the weaker brother and they're worried about it.

Just abstain.

Don't break their conscience or ask them to.

So, in the market, no problem.

Buy it, eat it.

It can't impact you.

The earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

If you're in a home and the pagan says, uh fine, eat it, but if they point it out, don't do it, because now you're participating in that worship.

And so he concludes by saying, Um, verse 31 so whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

In other words, if you eat it, do that to the glory of God.

And if you abstain, do that to the glory of God.

Love the person in front of you, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

These are the two commands to keep.

Do not cause anyone to stumble.

Jews, Greeks, church, please try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own good, but the good of the people in front of me, that they may be saved.

So we're wanting to communicate love and support and encouragement while not endorsing false worship or syncretism, which is the opening verses.

So let me um step back into these.

Let's see.

Verse 14.

Love this.

Sorry, I've been skipping a lot.

Um okay, yeah.

Therefore, dear friends, flee from idolatry.

So this is the third environment.

Market, fine.

Home, fine, unless.

Third uh thing is, but if you are in the temple, flee from idolatry.

I speak to sensible people, judge for yourselves what I say.

Is not the cup of thanksgiving uh the cup of eulogia, the eulogy is the original Greek or blessing, the cup of blessing for which we give thanks.

Is this not a participation or a fellowship, a koinonia in the blood of Christ?

And it's not the bread that we break, a participation, a koinonia in the body of Christ.

Because there's one loaf, we who are many are one body, we all partake of one loaf.

He's just referring to the Passover meal when they would pull out a matzah, there was one matzah thing, and they would break it up and give it to everyone present.

So he's just saying, like there's one matzah that we break up in the Passover meal, uh, Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us, he was broken, and we all participate in that one bread.

So are we not in that moment, he says, when we take the bread and when we take the wine like we just did, are we not fellowshipping with the God who gave himself for us at his table?

Now, this is anchored in two, at least two Old Testament passages, the Exodus, when they had the Passover meal and put the blood of the lamb on the door, and they broke unleavened bread on their way out of Egypt.

And so for 1500 years, the people of God had practiced this breaking of bread to remember, to honor their deliverance from Egypt.

Also, you'll remember in Psalm 23 the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quarters, he restores my soul.

Uh yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil, for you are with me, you're not.

And staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

So now we're a host at the table of the shepherd.

You anoint my head with oil, you purify me, and my cup overflows.

And so you have conquered my enemies, and you invite me to your table to share a fellowship meal with you.

And I find rest, as we sung about, rest in your presence.

Where do we find rest from?

Find rest from something.

Rest from enemies, rest from the battle, rest from the strain, the fight.

We find rest in him because he has finished it.

He has completed it.

Verse 18.

And this is the kicker.

Consider the people of Israel.

Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?

In other words, it was true in Israel also that when you brought, even in the law, if you read the Old Testament law, you'll see if they brought a bull or a goat or wine or bread or oil or other sacrifices, the same thing would happen.

They would offer the sacrifice, part would be burned up to God, part would be given to the priest, and part would be given back to the worshiper.

And I do love that model because God is saying, Bring me a sacrifice.

And oh, by the way, I want you to stay with me, and I want you to fellowship with me and this, that I give it back to you to enjoy fellowship with me, because we have now restored and renewed our fellowship based on your sacrifice.

That's what he means in verse 18.

Consider that Israel, do those who do not eat the sacrifices, fellowship or koinonia, participate in the altar?

Now, he's talking about uh pagan temples in 19.

Do I not mean that their sacrifice offered to an idol is anything or that an idol is anything?

No.

So he's saying, look, that's not real.

But the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God.

And I do not want you to be participants or fellowshipping or koinonia with demons.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.

You can't be syncretistically, you can't be a pantheon, you can't have multiple gods, you can have one God, you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons.

Are we trying to arouse his jealousy?

Are we stronger than he?

So he's saying, While the wood or the stone in front of you is just an image, it is an image that is demonically inspired, and that the forces of evil in the world are real.

So eat meat from the market, eat at your friend's table.

But if you come into a temple, even though the temple is a false god, there is a demonic reality behind it, and you are honoring it and fellowshipping with it if you participate.

And so he says, draw the line and don't do that.

And the reason that was difficult is that is often how businesses and guilds and patrons would invite people to their sacrifice, and you as the as the as the guild member are expected to go and participate because the more people that that person has there, the more favor he finds with that God.

And so for you to pull back and say, we will not attend, was not just a, oh, I'm busy, got a thing at the beach, birthday party for the kids, you know.

No.

There was no excuses.

And your absence was noted.

And Paul says, draw that line.

You cannot do that.

You cannot fellowship with demons and the Lord.

Because you are saying, when you go, it's fine to walk into the Hindu temple, but don't prostrate yourself when they're doing it.

Stand on the side and observe.

And so that's why it's so important for us to be aware, not just of the idols on Second Leap Road, but in our society.

One trait that God gave his people that no other people has is that God has never allowed his people to make a graven image, some physical symbol by which to represent him.

Not even an altar.

He said, I want you to make my altars with uncut stones.

Because what happens if Larry cuts the stones and makes an altar, and Bob over here doesn't, and Larry's, you know, when we pray and we get crops from Larry's side of the yard, but we don't from Bob's, then we all think we need to cut them like well, all of a sudden, where we put our faith in the way we did it, not in the God behind it.

And God says, I want you to worship me on stones that I made, not ones you made.

Because God did put an image of him in the world.

You and me, Adam and Eve.

In our image, let us make them male and female.

And they will show the world what we are like, they will lead creation, they will rule in our name, they will guide with wisdom and love and tenderness and care and vigilance, and they will multiply the life of God in the world.

God has his image on earth.

We don't need to make another one.

We need to be the one he's called us to be.

And that's why God takes so seriously his incarnation because Jesus, the word, became flesh and dwelt among us.

And when he died, when God needed a sacrifice to pay and atone for our sins, we couldn't bring it.

It was above our pay grade.

And they were people who tried.

They would put their families in the fire, kill their sons and daughters, sacrifice even themselves.

But to pay the price before a holy, infinitely holy God, only God Himself could pay his own price.

And so He came.

And He was the sacrifice.

And so when we come to the table to remember Him in communion, we are saying, Lord, we are your guests at your table, in which you sacrificed yourself for us and gave yourself for us.

And we now do this in remembrance of you.

Not just take the cup and the wine.

Yes, we do that.

We do the ritual, but the main thing we do is give ourselves like Jesus gave himself.

And we now take up our cross and we follow you.

For whoever would lose his life would find it, and for whoever would find his life would lose it.

And so that's why Paul is telling us to glorify God, eat the food in the market, go visit with your people at home, pagans, Christians, enjoy, love the Lord your God, love your neighbors yourself, but do not go into the idol temple and give the impression that you are honoring another God.

How do we do that now?

Tim Keller's done so much good work on modern idolatry among Christians and our church, the things that we struggle with.

You know, we're not going to probably go down to Second Luke Road and bow down to the to the image.

But an idol is simply an image of something created that is in some way a source to us.

That we look to for power, we look to for meaning, we look to for strength.

And without it, we would somehow be lost or desperate or lose our purpose for living.

Can we idolize things?

Of course.

I mean the obvious things: money, sex, ambition.

We can idolize family.

I remember when I was at Dallas Seminary, a lot of the uh the international students were amazed at how family was this magic eraser that erased any obligation before God and man.

Because my family.

And they gave it a word that has stuck familyolatry.

And it's a phrase that we often use, isn't it?

They say family is the most important thing.

And if you mean, hey, family's the most important relationship, if you're if you're a husband or a wife, or you're a parent, or you have you have an extended family that we're responsible to, the Bible itself says you've got to care for your family.

That's important.

And if you if that's what you mean, then fine.

But if you mean literally it's the most important thing, and without it, I would be lost.

That is family illotry.

Family is a gift from God that is an illustration of our relationship to Him.

And one day it will be gone, and we will all be His children and all be His bride.

And so to focus on this is a practice run, but God is the ultimate and He is our source.

And when we look to each other, may we not worship the graven images around us, but remember our Creator and may they point us to Him.

And so Paul wants us to be vigilant about our witness in the world so that others will see God in us and through us, but he also wants us to be vigilant to the idols in our own lives so that we are not, we don't take we don't take the cup of death, if you will, the candy-coated poison.

It feels right, it looks good, but it actually is a source of death, and it takes from us, gives us death rather than taking from us and giving us life, which is what God does.

I want to close on this illustration from the last supper that Jesus had with his disciples.

I'm gonna flip over to Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

This is where he's the Passover Seder dinner that they would be going through, it was structured in four movements that were actually noted by four cups of wine.

Now, wine in the Old Testament is a symbol of several, it's a symbol of blessing and also a symbol of wrath.

It serves both purposes.

But in this meal, it does also, it sort of serves both things.

And um, if you look in Exodus 6, 6 and 7 at the original Passover, when God is promising them what he's going to do, he makes four promises.

Exodus 6, 6, and 7.

Therefore say to the Israelites, I am the Lord, I will bring you out under the yoke of the Egyptians.

I will free you from being slaves, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and I will take you as my own people.

Those are the four statements that structure the Seder dinner, which are each associated with one of the cups of wine.

The first cup, drunk at the beginning, I will bring you out.

It's to kick off the celebration.

We are hearing about God's deliverance.

Second cup, a little bit in there, says, uh, I will deliver you.

Okay, we are anticipating God's redemption.

The third cup says, uh, I will redeem you.

And that's taken right after the meal.

And when Jesus was with his disciples in this moment, that is the cup he raised.

The third cup.

On the see.

While they were giving thanks, uh, while they were eating, sorry, Jesus gave, uh broke the bread, gave thanks, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take eat, this is my body.

So they'd just finished the meal.

Then he took the cup and gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, Take, drink all of it, drink from it all of you.

This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the many, the forgiveness of sins.

I tell you, I'll not drink of the fruit of this vine from now on until that day when I drink it with you in my father's kingdom.

Now that would have been confusing because there's still one cup of wine to go.

Like, what do you mean I can drink?

There's the fourth cup right here.

We're about to drink another cup.

But interestingly, it breaks off.

And it says, when they had sung a hymn, which we know was Psalms 115 to 118, it's the second half of the great halel.

That's what they always did.

When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

They didn't continue the meal, they broke it off after the cup of redemption.

Why?

Because the fourth cup says, I will take you as my own, as my people.

And Jesus says, I will drink that again when I meet you in the new heavens and the new earth and the new kingdom, and you will be my guests at my eternal table of fellowship.

That's the day we'll celebrate it.

It's coming.

And this is how you'll know.

When I am crucified, it is finished.

And I will rise from the dead.

I will give you some instructions, I will send my spirit, and I will go and I will prepare a place for you.

Friends, every single person in here has a seat at the table of Christ.

He has come to free us, to redeem us, and to claim us as his own.

Every person in here, all of us are welcome at Christ's table.

And that's how we glorify God is we understand, God, who are you making me?

And we live that out to God's glory.

And every single person in here has a unique way to do that.

If there was a hundred billion people on the planet, everyone would still be unique in the eyes of God, still precious in the eyes of God, still worth the blood of his son.

Every single person here and each of us brings something to that table.

A piece of God, a piece of God's heart, that we miss when you're not there.

And so what I take from this passage is a reminder from Paul that things matter, that the earth is the Lord's, that we should love our neighbor, do all to the glory of God, distance ourselves from syncretism in order to show honor to the host at our table alone.

All glory, all glory to Christ, all glory be to Christ alone.

So, Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.

I thank you for your truth, which we don't see men as trees.

You've given up to us in clear pictures, living hope.

You sent the prophets, and then you sent your son.

And now, Lord, we bear your image, we house your spirit, we gather in your name, we eat at your table, but we are still celebrating the third cup and look forward to that fourth cup one day when we'll meet you face to face.

And you wipe every tear from every eye, all shadows will be gone, and we will rejoice in you forever in the kingdom of light.

Lord, may we follow you with our whole hearts and give all glory to Christ now and always, in whose name we live, breathe, and pray.

Amen.