The Destructive Nature of Pride

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Well, last week was the last message in our summer series and today we re-engage in the book of 1 Corinthians. So if you have your Bible's turn to 1 Corinthians 8. And as you do, let me give you a two-minute mental on-ramp to get back into the flow of the book. The Corinthian church was very much like the American church in that it was a very privileged church. First, They were undoubtedly wealthy. They sat on the economic hub of the Mediterranean Sea. Wealth flowed through their city. Secondly, They were well-educated. They have some of the very best teachers in the world. This was the hay day of Greek philosophy and Paul and Apollos and Peter were able to hold their ground among some of the very smartest minds of their day.

So we can perhaps relate with that. But they had more still. They were being blessed by the Spirit in supernatural ways. The Spirit of God was doing some very miraculous things in that church. Some were speaking in tongues. Some were healing. Some were prophesying.

The Destructive Nature of Pride So the Corinthian church was very gifted - but the sin of pride was threatening to undo it completely. And Paul is confronting pride. And there are no shortage of opportunities to confront. He's confronted their arrogant attitude toward their teachers. He's confronting their sexually progressive views He's confronting their perceived rights to bring lawsuits against one

another.

Pride was threatening to tear them apart. That theme continues right into chapter 8 where we find ourselves today. But here he's going to address a new strain of that sin. Pride as it relates to knowledge. Pride that says, "I know I'm right. I know you are wrong. I know my perspective is correct. I know that my values are better than yours."

Relevance Today And this is a super, super important message for us to hear today. We are living in a day where everyone is saying, I know I'm right. My values are more important than yours. Your perspective is trash. Your views are the problem.

Here's a question the entire world is asking right now, "How am I going to live with people who are so radically different than I am?" How do we get along? Diversity is everywhere - theological diversity, political diversity, ethnic diversity, economic diversity. How do we get along?

The World's Attempt at an Answer Now the world has an answer to this. The world through history has had two ways of handling this problem: warfare or tolerance. If someone is different than you then you have two choices. Either try to destroy them, or you tolerate them. Either your remove the annoyance or you tolerate the annoyance.

Think of yellow jackets. Nobody likes them. So what can you do? You either get out a can of poison and drop em. Or you say, I don't like them up in my gables but they are far enough away so I'll tolerate your existence. Now we've seen both of these options worked out in history but today tolerance is in vogue. In fact if there is any gospel that our culture preaches consistently it's this. It's the gospel of the coexist bumper sticker. It's the gospel of unhitching ourselves from moral absolutes and letting people believe what makes them happy. But what Paul does in this passage and elsewhere in the NT is totally unhinge our minds from the normal way we approach this problem. It's neither tolerance or warfare. What Paul suggests in this passage is an gracious accepting intolerance that is peaceably at war. Now linguistically that makes no sense, but you'll see what he means in just a second.

Food Sacrificed to Idols Now what was the issue on which they found themselves disagreeing. Chapter 8 introduces this question that had arisen in the Corinthian church - meat sacrificed to idols. Any time the gospel penetrates a culture, the new believers have to wrestle with the implications of the gospel to the norms of culture. And in the case of the Corinthians, one of the issues at the very top of the list was food sacrificed to idols. Virtually all food that was sold in the marketplace every day was first

dedicated to one of the pagan deities. There was always that. But then there was also the social problem. There was food at virtually all public civic meetings, and the presider would of course dedicate the food to some pagan deity. It was very much a part of Roman culture. In fact, I was interested to learn about this sanctuary of Asclepius in Corinth

The architecture was designed so that it had both an area for cultic sacrifice and then several dining rooms that opened up in this pleasant public courtyard. So the scene is that people would go in and offer their meat through the front door and then the temple workers would trade in their priest hats for chef hats and sell it in their restaurant out the back door. Your looking at an ancient version of Outback Steakhouse. The point here is that it was common. They would have run into this as they conducted business, celebrated birthdays, weddings.

Do you see the point? Do you see how deeply this was engrained into the culture. Accepting meat given to you amounted to simple courtesy. I'm just inviting you to a meal. Why would you have any reservations at all? What scruple could you possibly have? Imagine if you had a religious objection to shaking hands. Think how many people you would offend. You'd have to really decide if that was a conviction you'd be willing to stand on. This was so enmeshed into the culture. So some in the culture said, this doesn't mean anything. Idols can't spiritually poison meat. I'm not betraying my allegiance to God by eating this meat. But others felt differently Others were operating out of deep conviction and said, “No Christian should eat food that has been dedicated to Asclepius.” Out of that conviction, out of conscience, they were withdrawing from these public ceremonies. But not only that, they were condemning other Christians who didn’t follow them. And of course no one likes to be condemned so those who were being condemned were offended at the irrational judgment being lobbied against them. So you have this cultural quarrel and you can imagine both groups frustrated. You can imagine them wanting a mediator. Paul would you solve this thing for us. And Paul addresses it but not the way either group expected. Let's begin with a verses 1-3 that we preached on before we took a break for the summer.

So you can see there is an answer to the actual question at hand. There is a piece of data that factors in and solves the intellectual question. Is the meat defiled by sacrifice to idols? No. The factual answer is that idols can't poison meat. So turns out one group is right. Turns out that one group has the correct answer to the question. They have knowledge. Paul is going to call this group the ones with strong consciences.

The Weak And opposing the strong consciences is what Paul calls those with weak consciences which doesn't sound super flattering. What is Paul's meaning of weak and strong conscience here? Here's an analogy that helps me. Picture a conscience like a smoke detector. A smoke detector is designed by engineers to go off if there is danger in the area. A properly designed smoke detector is one in which it pierces with an ear deafening alarm if AND ONLY if there is smoke in the building coming from a real fire that would

really threaten to burn my house to the ground. For all other reasons, it had better mind it's business. That's a good smoke dete Now there are two ways smoke detectors could fail.

Too Sensitive They could go be too sensitive and go off for the wrong reason. This is usually the way they fail. Your cooking up some bacon and all of the sudden it scares the living daylight out of you. Maybe you are taking a shower and the steam from the shower causes the smoke detector to go off. That's super annoying. So that's one way they could fail In Paul's terminology, the weak conscience is the conscience that is too sensitive. It's sensitive to things it shouldn't be. The weak in this passage are saying, "Danger, yikes! Spiritually poisoned meat." They think it's poison but in reality it's not poison. Their alarm went off for the wrong reason. They are weak Paul says. A misinformed conscience.

Not Sensitive Enough The second way smoke detectors fail is from not being sensitive enough. An actual fire is raging and the fire alarm the smoke is right up in the sensor, but it's not responding - it's not aware of anything. In this case the failure is not being too sensitive but rather not sensitive enough. This is like what Paul says 1 Tim 4 Paul when he talks about men who have "seared the conscience as with a hot branding iron." That's graphic. Perhaps you've had a very bad burn in your life and when that skin heals back it doesn't have the same ability to feel. You've burned off all the nerve endings. It's ability to

feel has been damaged. How do our consciences get that way? By ignoring them. Every time we ignore our conscience it becomes a little less effective. If the smoke detector goes off enough, what do we do? We pull out the batteries. And then what happens. We just goes to bed and peacefully falls asleep while the house burns to the ground. Seared consciences are dangerous because it allows people to genuinely sin in ways that truly destroy the soul and because they have seared their conscience they feel no prick in their heart. So you have the weak conscience, the seared conscience.

The Strong Conscience What we want is the perfectly operating fire alarm. It doesn't go off for steam but it does go off for dangerous smoke. And the strong conscience of course are ones whose smoke detector is tuned perfectly. They are those whose conscience is aware of real danger and it goes off and alerts them of real danger but it does not go off when there is something that might appear like danger but in reality it's just steam. So in Corinth you can imagine what is happening. 1. The weak (the overly sensitive) look at the strong eating meat and they wrongly accuse them of being seared. 2. The strong (properly tuned) look at the weak (overly sensitive) avoiding meat and they rightly label them weak. But both groups think of themselves as being strong. So whose right?

And they look to Paul to solve it. Paul come in and tell us whose right!

I think what surprises everyone is that Paul cares very little about who is right. He's not impressed with knowledge. He barely even cares about that. He cares enough to say it, but he cares about something else way more. You see I think they were all expecting Paul to walk in the room and take sides and then one side would puff out their chest and say, "You were just absolutely convinced you were right, weren't you. Now you see why I couldn't agree with you, because you were just dead wrong. " And you could see their smug smiles and enjoying a little too much their rightness. They were gloating. Why? Because Paul took their side and affirmed the truth of what they had been saying all along.

Paul thank you for ending this debate. These guys are pretty ridiculous for believing that these idols really exist, right. Idols can't spiritually poison meat, right? Please tell them to stop annoying us and ruining our lives with their weak consciences. Would you please tell them to stop being so incredibly rigid and lighten up. If Paul stopped here, that might be the attitude that they walked away with. Because, you almost think he's going to side with those who have knowledge. In fact, he lumps himself into this group in verse 4. We who are strong.... Aha, you see Paul is on our side. But Paul won't go there. Paul doesn't care about being right. Paul isn't impressed with knowledge. He makes them ask the question, "You who are strong in knowledge. What are you going to do with that knowledge?" Paul has a suggestion as to what they should do with it....use it to surrender their rights and love their brothers.

Paul is saying there is never any place for gloating, flaunting knowledge, acting superior to someone else because you have knowledge, projecting a certain smugness because you know you are right. All of that is absolutely unloving and uncaring.

How do you care for a person with a weak conscience? The essence of what he says here is this: You adjust your life to them. And of course all the strong at this point object. That's not fair. Their smoke detector is tuned incorrectly. Why is their improperly tuned smoke detector my problem? It's super annoying to the strong because here they are trying to eat some dinner and all of the sudden [beep, beep] it's blaring and all you are doing is taking a bite of steaming meat. I promise you, this piece of meat is not going to burn your house down. Paul says you need to conduct yourself in a way that silences that person's faulty alarm. That tends to really chap those who are strong. Why? Because the strong person is the one who has to give up. He's looking at the weak person and saying, “You have all your hang-ups. You get so superstitious. There is no Apollo. There is no Athena. Get over it." If you'd just get your head out of the sand this whole conflict would be over. If you can’t get over it, I’m not going to modify my behavior because of your imagined superstitions. You aren't going to hold me captive because of your petty scruples. You’re not going to change me. I’m going to eat when I’m going to eat. I’m going to eat it right in front of you. What does that attitude do to the weaker brother? Here's what doesn't happen. He doesn't get mad. He doesn't fight. He's not even offended. Here's where most people get this passage wrong and misapply it. The guy isn't offended by you eating meat. He's not

being judgmental. He's not playing the "I'm holier than thou card." You don't have to adjust your life to those people because you can never win with those people. That's not the weaker brother. Paul says the weak brother is the guy who sits there and says, “I don’t want to be narrow-minded. I don’t want to be stupid. I guess it’s all right.” THis is a conversation they are having in their head. And you may only have the slightest awareness of it. They pick up and eat. And because the guy's conscience is weak, because he really doesn't understand the the realities at work, he can't help but feel condemned. Now why is this bad? Because Paul says, when that happens, you destroy his conscience. You wound his conscience. Look at verse 12. What does that mean? What this guy needs is to understand the gospel. What he needs is knowledge. He needs his smoke detector reprogrammed. But that takes time. You can’t just turn that on a dime. It takes education. It takes reflection. It takes worship. It takes growth. And if you push the weak brother before he progresses, you destroy him. You see, here's the danger. Instead of going from a weak conscience to a strong conscience, you will go from a weak conscience to a seared conscience. And that is super, super dangerous. Because a seared conscience will no longer be afraid of sin. When true danger comes into his life, when something truly destructive to his soul comes into his life, he will have no warning mechanism against it. When we sear our conscience we hear the fire alarm going off and it initially causes fright in our heart but if we get accustomed to walk up and we turn it off, then it's game over. When people start laughing at fire alarms, the alarm itself can be perfectly tuned, but it has lost all effectiveness. And Paul is warning that if you cause a weak brother

to start laughing at his alarm, you have sinned against him and effectively pulled the batteries from the one sensor he has that alerts him of sin. Paul says, don't ever make anyone get accustomed to shutting off the alarm (even for things that are truly no big deal). Why? Because then it will be no big deal to shut it off one more time when he really is in spiritual danger. Eventually he'll just pull out the batteries all together. A lot is at stake. There are many who think they are strong who are actually seared for this very reason. They are the casualties that Paul warns about.

Defining the Application Now when I first read this passage I was really discouraged because I didn't immediately see application for us today. I'm sitting here thinking, "Is there even a parallel in our culture today? But there are dozens and dozens of examples of things like this. In what might you be (perhaps even unintentionally) flaunting your liberty to those who make be weak? It's a call for introspection. It's a call to crawl into the mind and heart of the weaker brother and try to view the world through his eyes. It's a call to just think before you broadcast. For example How would a less wealthy friend feel about that picture you posted on Facebook of your elegant vacation? You say, what right does he have to judge me? I'm not spending irresponsibly. All that money was saved in advance. I'm free to do what I want. What would Paul say, "You are factually correct. Of course you are free to do what you want. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak."

Again, it's not a call to beware of people who will judge you. Those

people will never end. It's a call to beware of people who will look and say, "I always felt like I should sacrifice and not go on expensive vacations. I always felt like spending money like that was wrong, but I guess it's not. I guess I shouldn't be so serious about giving and just loosen up." It's a call to introspection. How is my behavior affecting weaker people around me. It takes a lot of deliberate effort since strong people are lacking the very weakness they need to see the problem. How would a person who came out of life of partying and substance abuse feel about the alcohol served at your party? Think about it. Now to be clear (I feel like this point needs to be made dozens of times). The weaker person here is not the person who is offended by it. That's being judgmental. It's the person who feels pressure to join in and isn't quite yet there theologically. He sins against his conscience which means that you've sinned against him by creating an environment he wasn't ready for. I think there is an application here to clothing. I could imagine a situation in which a friend or a coach pressures a young girl into wearing something that is tighter than she wants or more revealing than she wants and insists that it looks good on her. And because she doesn't want to be prudish or legalistic, she goes against her conscience. Maybe she sees goes to events or just sees pictures posted of events with her friends wearing less modest swimsuits than her and she's not comfortable with that but she feels pressure. The stronger here has an obligation to look out for the weak. To help them along.

It's a call to be aware. How does my behavior effect the consciences of those around me. Will my hair color, my choice to participate in Halloween or music

choices or entertainment choices or cultural engagement choices cause my weaker brother to go, "Wow, I guess I need to just violate my conscience and get with the times. If that happens, Paul says, you've sinned against your brother for whom Christ died." That is strong language. I don't care if your well-informed theologically Paul says. I don't care how well you handle gray areas. I don't care how tempermentally flexible you are. What I care about is that you are patient with the weaker brother. The criticism of this passage is not toward the weak. The criticism here is actually toward the strong. The strong are not bearing with the weak. That means they’re not being patient with the weak. They are annoyed, irked, bothered, inconvenience by them. Of course the weak here are intolerant. But the strong are intolerant too. They are both intolerant of one another. The tolerant are tolerant of everyone but the intolerant. They are judgmental of judgmental people. What’s actually happening is neither side is really accepting the other. Neither side is really relating to the other. Neither side is really respecting the other. They’re both just absolutely disdaining each other, and there are all kinds of conflict and disunity and division.

Truth and Grace What's Paul answer? In Romans 14:1 Paul is talking about the exact same issue of meat sacrificed to idols but instead of the Corinthians, he's now talking to the Romans. And he says this.

He opens by saying this.

What is he saying here? Your example of how to treat people is God. Treat them the way God treats them. He is saying there is a way to accept and love a brother who doesn't get it and without necessarily agreeing with him, you love him. And to be clear this acceptance of him is not mere toleration. Toleration makes no attempt to change. You tolerate yellow jackets, but you don't try and change them. No Paul says welcome. That's the Greek work "proslambano" which means come along side. You aren't ahead of him leading him. You aren't pushing from behind. You come along side. It's acceptance and love with the view of bearing their weaknesses and together pursue truth. So what's Paul's view? How do we deal with all the diversity in the world? Should we destroy? Should we tolerate?

Paul's view is that we should be graciously intolerantly while being peaceably at war. We welcome the individual and are graciously, patiently, mercifully at war with any part of that individual that does not resemble Christ. This is one of the absolute hardest concepts for the human machine to understand. But I think this is the essence of truth and grace. This is the essence of what Jesus did for us. Just step back and think about this for a second. Look at your personal failings honestly. Look at your intellectual failings honestly. Does God look at you and say, man he gets it. Look at the things you love in your life? Does Jesus agree with your value structure? Are there things you do that grate on his nerves? Are there ways you spend your time that bother him? I'm sure he's appalled by much of what he sees. Does Jesus love us? There isn't even the slightest doubt. But you know that his love is not mere toleration. He doesn't tolerate you like a yellow jacket. He's absolutely intolerant toward those things in you that need refinement; he is peaceably at war with those things. He want to change you for your good. He will not merely tolerate. Now you go and take that attitude toward the weak. Go and love the weak that way. “I want you to enter into a relationship with someone you are convinced is seriously, significantly wrong, wrong about reality, wrong about God, wrong in their beliefs.” And I want you to bear the burdens of that weak person. That is profound. How do we do that?

Examples

Doug Moo in his commentary on Romans says that this should be translated not bear the burdens of the weak, but bear the weaknesses of the weak. Now, think about this. This is pretty significant. If someone's fire alarm is tuned incorrectly and you lived in that house and if you cared about that person, how would bear the weaknessess of that household? Let's say you had to go to work at 4:00am and everyone else was sleeping. Well if steamy showers and bacon caused the fire alarm to go off, well then you'd have to stop cooking bacon and taking steamy showers till that fire alarm got fixed. And of course you would object, "But I like steamy showers. I like bacon." Yes, but how cruel of you to wake everyone up. Sure you have a right to, but that is so meanspirited. Eventually he's going to pull the batteries, he'll sear his conscience and the he'll be in true danger. You destroy the person through your unloving behavior. Bearing the weaknesses of that broken fire detector would mean altering your behavior and inconveniencing yourself, doing what you don't want to do because you have to work around that broken smoke detector. Here's another pretty relevant example. Currently there is a giant discussion going on with how the church should treat the transgender, the gay and lesbians among us. And every Christian is going to have to wrestle with how they individually are going to have to conduct themselves toward their gay and lesbian coworkers, family members, etc.

And for some, it really, truly, deeply would bother their conscience to go to a gay or lesbian or transgender wedding. Paul shoots off a warning signal here. Perhaps their conscience is improperly tuned. It's needs to be graciously, patiently reprogrammed. But don't pressure them into doing something they are uncomfortable with. It's not wrong to graciously talk about it. You are supposed to do that. That's not searing the conscience. The gentle, gracious discussion is what helps reprogram the conscience. What sears the conscience, the way you sin against your brother is by pressuring them to do something they haven't yet come to see as a freedom they have in Christ. Paul says, don't look down on people that are more conservative than you, who are more legalistic than you. Suddenly we find ourselves right where the Corinthian church found themselves. The weak look at the strong and accuse them of being seared. The strong look at the weak and accuse them of being weak. This is a call to adjust your life, to change your life, to inconvenience yourself, to create space in your life for somebody who you believe is seriously wrong.

Communion We are to welcome (proslambano) these people. Why? Because Christ has welcomed them. Paul uses that same word a chapter later.

Today is communion Sunday and I want to talk about how specifically Christ welcomed us because I really think this will help you understand the spirit of us laying down our rights. If you’re a Christian, here’s how you were welcomed. Your whole life revolves around the fact that Jesus Christ opened himself to you when you were wrong. While we were sinners, Christ died for us. So, how should we treat those who are wrong. Like Christ treated us. You don't say, “I’ll relate to you as long as you change, but I’m not going to change." Let me prove why you are wrong in a 12 step argument. On the cross we have the ultimate example of gracious intolerance that is peaceably at war. On the cross Jesus Christ was not tolerant.

Do you know why? When he died, that was one of the most negative evaluations you’ve ever received in your whole life, the most negative evaluation in history. Why did he die on the cross? When he died on the cross, he was saying, “You’re so wicked, you’re so lost, you’re going to hell. I have to do this.” Think about that. Jesus was not tolerant on the cross because to die is to say to you, “You’re lost. You have no hope, and your situation is so serious that nothing less than the Son of God’s death on the cross will save you from hell.” When he died, he was not being tolerant. He was being graciously intolerant by absorbing the injustice of his children being in error. Think about that. He was becoming massively vulnerable to you. Tim Keller says, "There are enormous resources in the gospel if you build your identity on it for Christians to be, not just tolerant, way beyond tolerant, to be able to disagree with people we think are utterly different, make negative evaluations, which is real engagement and real interaction, and yet do so without the slightest bit of ill will, without the slightest need to exercise power in those relationships and those friendships. Sharply disagree, love, respect, deference, humility, no need for power, no need to win the argument, utter poise and inner security as you’re doing it. We ought to be showing the world the way." Do you see what he's saying?

“Receive one another just as Christ received you.” Let’s pray.