I feel that I’ve got some explaining to do. The reason is because if you’ve walked along with us here for a number of years, then you know that today is an anomaly. Typically, I’m preaching through a book of the Bible so that you know what the text is each week by recognizing that it begins where the previous one left off. And, if I’m not preaching through a book of the Bible straight through, then I’ll take up a psalm so that I can work through preaching the Psalter gradually. But rarely do I take up a text in the middle of some biblical book that is not part of a series of sermons. In fact, I looked back over the past seven years, and realized that I’ve done this on five occasions in those seven years. One of them was just prior to going on the two-year sabbatical to Louisville, so I wanted to preach a text that said to you what I wanted to say before leaving you for two years. The time before that was a special occasion in which Ray and Nate specifically asked me to preach through Ephesians 4:1-16 so that a number of new members would see how this text is so foundational for us as a church. Two times were on Easter Sunday in 2005 and 2006 in which I preached from texts related to the resurrection, and the other was on Reformation Day in 2004, when I took up a text specifically focused on justification by faith alone.
So not only is the practice of taking up a text not in a series and not a psalm rare in our experience, but it has only happened in the last seven years because of special cases and on really special occasions. So, why take up 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 this morning when we’re not studying the book of 1 Corinthians? I mean, this text doesn’t even have some specific application for Veteran’s Day. So why take up this text, and why now?
There are a few answers to this question. The first is that I felt this text would be helpful for us to look at before walking through the book of Jeremiah, which we will start in a few weeks. Jeremiah is filled with God’s declaration of judgment and condemnation upon his people, and as we walk through fifty-two chapters of a book which focuses on Israel’s sin and divine judgment, I wanted us to have a firm understanding in our minds as to why we need to look at such texts. I think this text helpfully provides for us that understanding, which I hope to show in a bit.
The second reason is to minister to us as a local church who have walked through the painful act of church discipline recently. There are occasions where you watch a brother or sister walk down a certain path of sin, and you feel like their return is hopeless, don’t you? I know I’ve been tempted to feel that way. There are certain sins that we feel have such a strong grip and come with such powerful temptations that the thought of walking away from that sin and saying “no” to that temptation seems about as possible as convincing your body that it’s possible not to drink water any more. Those are often the kinds of sins that lead people down a path in which they don’t want to turn from them. So, it might be a guy struggling with pornography who feels that the temptation appeals to something so deep within him that it seems unlikely that he could leave that life behind and walk in holiness. It might be the individual who has walked in homosexuality and feels that this sin is so much a part of who he or she is that the temptation is too much to overcome. Or it could be a hundred other temptations: the girl who starves herself because she’s chasing a certain body image, the person who is constantly chasing prestige and wants to be exalted in others’ eyes, or the single person who feels that contentment is always outside of his or her reach. Simply put, there are certain temptations that we are tempted to think are too powerful for us. Maybe they’re temptations we struggle with ourselves or some that we see in others, but they are temptations regarding sins where we think it next to impossible to imagine someone walking out of it and standing strong against temptations to return. We think, if someone has this specific struggle, then there’s little hope for them. And if that’s our thinking, this text addresses that issue for us and helps us conform our minds to a more biblical way of thinking about sin and temptation.
The final reason is that this text once again reminds us of the importance of fighting against sin. And, I don’t think I’m the only person who needs to be reminded of this again and again. It’s easy for our hearts to grow hard and become deceived as to what an evil sin is. So, we begin to tolerate things that we didn’t before and slowly sink into a life of sin that soon characterizes our everyday existence. So, we need to be reminded of the importance of fighting sin and the stakes of our fight. For these reasons, I thought it helpful for us to pause at this moment in the life of our church and look at 1 Corinthians 10:1-13.
1 Corinthians 10:1-13 falls within a larger section (chs. 8-11) in which Paul is looking at issues of understanding our freedoms, sacrificing our rights, and how to address the specific sin of idol worship. But the verses we’re looking at this morning, I think relate more directly to something Paul says right before this chapter.
In the midst of talking about his willingness to sacrifice his rights and exercise self-control, Paul says in 9:27, “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” And, John Piper has noted—and I think rightly—that by “disqualified” Paul means to be found as one who does not know Christ. Piper points out that Paul uses this same word translated “disqualified” here to identify those in 2 Corinthians 13:5 who are said not to have Christ in them.1 So, Paul is saying that he disciplines himself so that he is not found living the kind of life that displays that one does not know Christ.
Now, certainly Paul believes that he truly is born again and will most definitely not walk down that road of wanting sin more than Christ. But he does not use this confidence in God’s faithful preserving work to lead him to be less diligent in his fight against sin. He uses this confidence to make him more diligent in his fight against sin.
But someone might say, “Lighten up a bit, Paul. Take it easy in your fight against sin. Why do you discipline yourself so severely? Quit taking such a serious stance against sin. After all, we’re fine. We’ve been baptized. We’ve partaken of the Lord’s Supper week after week. We’ve had all kinds of great experiences as believers. So, relax and rest. You can let your guard down a bit and not fight against sin so diligently.”
So Paul begins chapter 10 by reminding them of why it is so important to fight against sin and make sure our lives do not provide evidence that we do not know Christ. After all, isn’t that what we’re saying when someone is disciplined and removed from the church? We’re saying that their lives do not give evidence that they know Christ. So, Paul is saying that he fights sin to make sure that’s never true of him. And he encourages the Corinthians (and us) to do the same. So, this text is a help to us to realize the serious nature of fighting sin.
vWith that, then, Paul begins by showing them their need to …
If we’re tempted to take sin lightly and not put up much of a fight against temptation because we can say, “But look at all the experiences I’ve had in my life. I walked an aisle. I’ve been baptized. I’ve taken of the Lord’s Supper. I’ve read my Bible a lot. I’ve even seen evidence of the Lord’s work in my life,” then Paul points to the example of Israel.
He writes in verses 1-4, “I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the same cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”
Paul says, “You want to see people who had some great past experiences, look at Israel.” Then Paul shows us that they had their own kind of baptism and Lord’s Supper. They all were led out of Egypt under the cloud and all passed through the Red Sea with their deliverer, Moses. It was as if this mirrored our experience of being baptized and identifying ourselves with our deliverer, Christ. Also, they all ate manna and drank from the rock, a mirror of the Lord’s Supper, as Christ was providing for them (which is I think the basic thought behind the declaration “and the Rock was Christ”). They had all those experiences. But what happened to them? Paul writes in verse 5, “Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”
Do you see the connection? All had the past experiences but with most God was not pleased. Why? Because their lives soon gave evidence that they did not know Christ. They may have walked through a picture of what salvation is, being rescued from an enemy that held them captive, but they ultimately showed that their hearts had not been freed from captivity to sin, and they did not have faith.
And if we’re tempted to say, “Well, that’s Israel. This has little to do with us,” Paul tells us in verse 6, “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.”
Do you see? God made sure that these events in Israel’s life were written down in the Scripture because he was providing an example for us not to follow. God was making sure that we might look at what happened to them and not desire evil but fight sin.
God never intends for us to see his work in our lives as a reason not to fight sin and to battle against temptation. Rather, what should have happened in Israel’s life is that they should have seen what God did in their lives and should have trusted in Christ. They should have said, “He has proven himself so trustworthy and good that I will trust in him instead of seeking pleasure in my sin.” But they didn’t, and so they died in the wilderness.
So, what should we then do? This is our second point, namely …
You see, sin has a hardening and deceiving effect on our hearts. So you let a bit in and do not repent of it, and then your heart is a little less sensitive to it and even thinks it’s not so bad, and so you dive in a little deeper, and ultimately you find yourself in a place where you’re giving evidence that you don’t know Christ by the life that you live and your unwillingness to repent of your sin. This is how sin works. That’s why we have to fight sin as if it’s trying to pull us into hell.
This is what Paul tells us in light of Israel’s example. He writes in verses 7-10, “Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.’ We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.”
He tells us, “Do not do what they did. They were judged in the end.” This means that the couple that is involved in sexual immorality and are even convincing themselves that it’s okay needs to wake up from their deadness and hardness of heart and realize how that road of sexual immorality ended for the Israelites. Don’t say, “But we know the Lord.” That’s only a reason to fight sin more diligently and is reflective of a heart that doesn’t know Christ.
God judged them. And lest we want to justify our sin by saying, “Well, but so many have sinned this way,” then we should note that one of the Israelites could have pointed to twenty-three thousand others involved in immorality, but he also would have counted that many dead bodies strewn across the earth at the end of the day.
God gave us that example so that we might open our eyes and say, “I can’t mess around any more. I’ve got to take sin seriously. I’ve got to fight it with the realization that it’s trying to pull me into hell.” That’s what Paul tells us in verse 11: “Now these things happened to them as an example, but were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.”
That is, one way God preserves his people is by making sure they see how the road of giving into sin ends. He gives us the example of Israel giving themselves to idolatry, sexual immorality, testing Christ, and grumbling against him and then dying under the judgment of God so that we might not give ourselves over to the same things but might fight diligently against them.
But how do we fight? I think the key is the third point I want us to see this morning:
Now, Paul doesn’t say exactly that in verse 12, but I think that’s the main application of what Paul says in verse 12. What he says in verse 12 is, “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”
Paul is warning them not to feel so confident that they fail to see the threat that sin is to them, so confident in where they stand that they lose sight of the importance of disciplining themselves in the fight against sin. So, in light of that statement, why am I saying that I think the main application of this verse is that we need to daily feel our need for the gospel and look to the gospel in faith?
Well, first, I say that we daily need to feel our need for the gospel because Paul tells us not to find confidence in thinking we don’t have to see sin as a threat to us. We need to realize every day that we are needy. Today I am not above sin enticing me and my heart leaping after it. Nor will I be above that tomorrow. In fact, I will not be above it until Christ returns. Think about it, if anyone would be beyond a need to discipline himself for a fight against sin because he knows his heart is not beyond a strong desire for it, it would be Paul. And what does he say? He says, “I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (9:27). So, every day we need to realize that we are needy and not above giving in to temptation. We need always to be on the aggressive in the fight against sin.
But I say that we daily need to feel our need for the gospel and look to the gospel in faith because the gospel is our greatest need in the fight against sin. Remember Paul’s language to the Galatians when he asks them, “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh” (Galatians 3:2-3. Paul is saying that just as you looked to the gospel in faith and were justified, this is also the means by which you are sanctified. You aren’t completely dependent on the gospel to start the Christian life and then advance to being able to do it without the help of the gospel.
So, how did Paul live? He tells us in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Do you see? Paul lived his life by continually looking with faith to the one who lived, died, and was raised for him. This was the way in which he lived his life. How did he get himself to be willing to sacrifice eating meat if it would offend his brother, when eating meat was no sin? He found a willingness to do that by remembering that Christ had lived a perfect life for him, had died to pay for his sins, and had been raised from the dead. That message and faith in that Christ is what strengthened him to do what he did. So, when Paul says that he disciplined his body, it meant that he indeed took steps to control his lusts, not give himself over to things his flesh might have craved. But the fuel behind it was faith in the gospel of Christ. Paul tells us that’s how he lived his life – by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for him.
So, we need to realize every day our need for the gospel. Every day the greatest discipline you can have is to discipline yourself to think about the gospel – what Christ did, what it means for you, and your life because of Christ’s work. Think about and meditate on it and believe it to be true. And then, because of your faith in that gospel message, make decisions that will wage war against sin. But don’t in any day think you are beyond the need of being reminded of the gospel and meditating on it in faith. That discipline, is the greatest need you have.
And, finally, Paul reminds us that …
Paul typically ends his strong warnings against being given over to sin by saying something along the lines of the idea that he has full assurance that his hearers will indeed continue to hold fast to the gospel and show themselves to be those who know Christ. He ends with a word of comfort and assurance. And this text is no exception. Paul ends by writing, “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, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
It might be easy for some of us to respond by saying, “This all sounds great. I really want to fight against sin. I really don’t want to walk in this way or to continue to walk in this sin. But it’s too great. My sin is different. It’s got a hold on me that cannot be broken, and the temptation is too great to overcome.” And if that’s your response, then Paul says, “That’s a lie.”
You see, one thing God does to preserve his children, ensuring that they persevere to the end is he allows no temptation to come to them that is too great for them to endure. He won’t do it. So, if you’ve bought into the notion that your temptation and your struggle is too great, and if your heart is saying, “I can’t turn from this; the temptation is too much,” you tell your heart to be quiet and to listen to the truth. The truth is that if the temptation you’re facing right now or will face tomorrow or will face in twenty years, if that temptation were too great for you, then God would keep it from you. And if you’re thinking, “But my temptation to sin is different,” God says, “No it isn’t.” Your temptation is common to man. You may not be tempted or have the same particular struggles that I have, but others do. And God has made sure that they’re not too great for me or you. God will provide the strength and grace to overcome any temptation that you face, no matter how strong you think that temptation is.
This is why when we see a professing believer in sin up to his neck like it is quicksand, we still have hope. If they belong to Christ, their temptation to sin is not greater than the Lord’s grace to bring them out of it. And it’s why we fight with hope as well.
So, this morning, 1) let us not give ourselves any reason not to fight sin diligently in our lives. 2) Let us fight sin as if it’s trying to pull us into hell. 3) Let us realize our daily need for the gospel and look to the gospel in faith as strength to walk in holiness, 4) reminding ourselves continually that God will give us the grace to overcome any temptation to sin that threatens us. And let us begin by looking to the gospel in faith now as we come to the table. Amen.