This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

We're continuing to look at 1st Corinthians 10 this week, this is day four of
our walk through this chapter. This is a day about our freedom in Christ. You
have freedom in Christ.

And the more mature you become as a believer, the more you realize what that
freedom is really all about. The more you realize that it is not the freedom to
do what you want, it is the freedom to serve others. The same kind of freedom
that Jesus showed, that Jesus had when he walked this earth.

Jesus is God. He was free to do anything that he wanted. He chose to serve.

And as Paul wraps up his answer to the question, can we eat meat that's
sacrificed to idols? It's a question that he started answering way back in
chapter eight. As he wraps up and gets very specific about the answer in these
verses, there are some overall principles that he's going to talk to us about
that have to do with freedom.

In fact, verses 23 and 24 contain a couple of those principles. Paul writes,
"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. " Paul writes and he
says, "You want to live in freedom? Then you have to know the right questions to
ask.

The right question is not, 'Is it permissible? Can I get away with it? ' The
right question is, 'Is it beneficial?

Is it constructive? Does it build things up? ' The right question is not,
'What's best for me?

' The right question is, 'What's best for others? ' That's how you live in
freedom. That's how you live out who God's made you to be.

You stop asking, 'Is it permissible? ' and you start asking, 'Is it beneficial?
Is it constructive?

' You stop asking, 'What's best for me? ' and you start asking, 'What's best for
others? ' You ask the kind of questions that Jesus asked and then he lived out
the answers to those questions.

Now, you cannot ask those questions or live out the answer to those questions on
your own power. You need God's power. You need Spirit's power.

You need the power that only Jesus can give. So you ask the questions asking for
his power to live out a different kind of life. Paul says to those in Corinth,
"These are the kinds of questions I want you to ask.

" And then he applies it to their situation. He says, "Based on those
principles, here are the answers to what to do on this question of whether you
should eat meat that's been sacrificed in an idol's temple. You know it's not a
real idol.

You know that the meat can't hurt you, but there are some who believe it is, and
so them seeing you eat it might hurt their faith, their direction, and their
decisions for faith in life. " So Paul writes and he says, "Here's the answers,"
verse 25 to 30, "Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions
of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. If some
unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before
you without raising questions of conscience.

But if someone says to you, 'This has been offered in sacrifice,' then do not
eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience's sake. "
The other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. "For why should my freedom be
judged by another's conscience?

If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of
something I thank God for? " Paul writes here and he gives very clear answers.
The situation in that day was you would have meat that would be sacrificed in an
idol's temple, then it would be taken to the butcher, and it would be sold in
the market.

And some of the meat there may have been sacrificed in an idol's temple, some of
it not. Paul writes and he says, "In the meat market, don't ask, 'Is this
sacrifice in an idol's temple or not? ' It doesn't really matter.

So you just don't say. You just eat it in freedom. As long as you don't know
where the meat came from, you eat it in freedom.

It's not your responsibility in that situation, Paul says, as a believer, to
raise the question of conscience. Because the question isn't about where the
meat came from. The question is about what somebody sees when they see you
eating that meat.

So he says, "If someone tells you it's been sacrificed, you don't eat it. " But
here's the key principle. As long as you don't know where the meat came from,
you eat it in freedom.

When someone tells you it's been sacrificed, then you don't eat it in freedom.
That's the key. Both are in freedom.

Because they told you, "Hey, this was sacrificed in an idol's temple," it might
hurt their conscience if you ate it. So just don't eat it in freedom. So in both
cases, you're living your freedom in Christ.

Now I know that drives some of us crazy. We want freedom in Christ to be like
this list, and this is what I can do, this is what I can't do. And Paul writes
here and says, "Sometimes you can eat meat, sometimes you can't," based on the
person that you're with, based on what they know, based on the circumstance.

He's not talking about circumstantial morality here. He's talking about love.
He's talking about loving the person who might be hurt because they saw you eat
that piece of meat.

Or he's talking about loving the person who might be hurt because they saw you
take a drink. Or he's talking about loving the person who might be hurt because
they saw you involved in that kind of a business deal, or even talking with that
person. For the sake of the other person, for your love, you decide to serve.

You have the freedom to serve. You are free to choose to eat, and you're free to
choose not to eat. Here's one of the key principles in these verses.

Sometimes your greatest expression of freedom is in what you choose not to do
because of love. When I'm immature as a believer in Christ, I think that my
greatest expression of freedom is in what Jesus allows me to do. And those in
Corinth were feeling that way.

We're going to see it next week when we look at what they were doing with
worship. It got pretty crazy sometimes in their worship services because they
felt like, "We're free to do all these things we could never do. " It's sort of
like that period of time when a kid goes off to college and they might go crazy
for a little while because they're free to do anything that they want.

And then all of a sudden they realize, "Wait a minute. I'm not really free. I'm
going to suffer because of this.

" And maybe really what mom and dad were saying here really made some sense.
What they thought was freedom really wasn't. And that was happening in the
Corinthian church.

And Paul's writing and helping them to understand true freedom. And that often
the greatest expression of freedom is in what you choose not to do because of
love. That's certainly true for a parent.

Just think as a parent, for those of you who've seen, we've all seen parents who
truly love their kids. Think of what they choose not to do because of love. They
choose not to buy that car, buy this car, not buy any car at all because they
can't afford it.

Not to be in this neighborhood, to be in this neighborhood. Not to leave my job
and take a risk right now because I need to support my family. Not to do this,
not to do that.

There are a long list of things that parents don't do. Not to go out at night on
a date because, you know what? The kids are sleeping and we shouldn't probably
leave them home all alone sleeping.

There's all kinds of decisions, things you choose not to do just because you
love. Now is that slavery? No.

That's one of the greatest expressions of freedom. I know that because of Jesus.
What's true of you as parents or as you watch parents is certainly true of
Jesus.

We see his greatest freedom in what he chose not to do because of his love. He
chose not to forego what it meant to be in a human body. He chose not to escape
this earth but to live through all that it means to be a human being.

He chose not to call 10,000 angels when he was on the cross but instead to go
through the suffering of the cross and give his life for us and in that he chose
to love. Now was Jesus a slave in doing that? No.

He was free. He was free to choose. So this idea that freedom means I get to
choose to do things that no one else can do, that's a very immature idea of
freedom because the depth of freedom and the greatest impact you're going to
make with your life that I'm going to make with my life is when I choose not to
do this because I love him, because I love her, because I love you.

Let's pray together. Jesus, thank you that you chose not to call 10,000 angels
to deliver you from that cross but instead you suffered for us, you gave your
life for us and help us to see where in freedom we can choose not. Not because
someone else has told us we need to live this way.

Not because someone else is saying to us you have to do what I'm saying but
because we in freedom can say no to this, no to this drink, no to this food, no
to this relationship, no to this schedule, no to so many things but not feeling
like we're being burdened but instead because we're free. Jesus, show me today,
show us today, what can we say no to in order to love somebody in our lives, in
freedom? Give us the joy of doing that today, we pray.

In your name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look together at one final
overarching principle for how we exercise our freedom in Christ.