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This is day five together of 1st Corinthians chapter 10. We're going to look at
verses 31 to 33 today. In fact, I'd like to begin by reading those verses.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks, or the Church of God, even
as I try to please everyone in every way. For I'm not seeking my own good, but
the good of many, so that many may be saved.

Paul writes and he says here's the overarching principle for living out your
freedom in Christ. Do it all for the glory of God. As you make your choice to
exercise your freedom to eat or not to eat, you do it all for the glory of God.

Whether you eat, whether you don't eat, who should get the credit? God gets the
credit. It's all done for God's glory.

That's one of the main questions of life. Who gets the credit? A lot of people
live life on credit when it comes to their credit card.

There's others who live life for credit when it comes to the credit and the
glory that can come their way. But these scriptures remind us that we're to live
life in order to bring credit to God. That's how we're to live.

This idea of credit, credit can be addictive. It's true financially. It's true
with your credit card.

There's something thrilling about spending money that you don't have and there
are many many people who have gotten addicted to spending money through their
credit card to the tunes of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. It
can be addictive. It's also true when it comes to the credit, the applause that
you can get for doing something well.

It's okay to enjoy affirmation. It's okay to enjoy a well done. God's going to
give us one at the end of time.

But some begin to live for that affirmation. You begin to live in such a way
that you need a credit fix. And just like someone who needs to take their credit
card and go out and spend money to get the shot of adrenaline or feel better
about themselves, you need someone to say something to you to get that shot of
adrenaline, to feel better about yourself.

In fact, it becomes so pervasive in your life that you soon find yourself
stealing others' credit without really caring, without even really knowing about
it. Writing a letter about what somebody else did so you can get the credit, you
can get the attaboy or attagirl, so you get that adrenaline fix. You need your
credit fix.

Paul writes here and he says, "There is a refreshing new way of living. " And
here it is. God gets the credit.

It's all for God's glory in the end. God gets the credit. So if I don't get the
credit that I think I should have gotten, it's all for God's glory in the end
anyway, I can let it roll off my back a little easier.

So if someone steals credit that should have been mine, that can make you mad.
You realize it's all for God's glory in the end anyway. And in the end it's all
going to be sorted out, the book's going to be made right.

In this moment it might look they stole something from me, but in the end it's
not going to look that way at all. It's all his. And so if applause is being
heaped on you right now, it doesn't turn your head.

It doesn't create pride because you know where it's all headed in the end. God
gets the glory. You see this issue of credit, of praise, it has to do with
motivation in your life.

Credit has to do with why you do what you do. Do you do it for the recognition,
for the results, for the reward that comes when somebody says something nice
about you? Those motivations pale in comparison with doing it for God's glory
because those motivations, some little recognition, some result I get in the
moment, some reward I get if somebody's applauding me, that's going to last for
a moment.

The glory of God lasts forever and we get to enjoy it together forever. Wow. And
so I love the simplicity of this verse.

Do it all for the glory of God. Let's just break that down. First he says you do
it.

This glory of God, it has something to do with what you do. He's not just saying
wait to see the glory of God, he's saying do what you do for the glory of God.
Do it for the glory of God.

The glory of God is not me sitting in a chair waiting for Jesus to come again
someday. The glory of God is me living out who God has made me to be right now
as I anticipate Jesus coming again and me spending eternity with him. Do it.

This is about daily life. This is about what you do. You do it for the glory of
God.

There is something I do but there is a reason that I do it. What's the
motivation in what you do? And if you're like me, it's mixed many times.

There's sometimes I do it just for me. There's sometimes I do it, it seems like
it's, yeah, for God's glory but also I got some of me in it. The process of
growth in the Christian life is the more you grow as a believer, the more you
think about God's glory, the more you do it for God's glory.

We're never going to be perfect in this world, we're always going to have some
mixed motivations but my prayer for me, for you both, is that more and more we
do it for God's glory. But there's one other word in this phrase. I skipped it,
"You do it all for the glory of God.

" Not just do the church things for the glory of God. Not just do the big things
for the glory of God. Not just do the family things for the glory of God.

Not just do the God looking things for the glory of God. You do it all. Paul
says whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, in the way that you eat you do
it for God's glory.

In the way that you drink you do it for God's glory. And what does this mean?
All.

It means all. Does this include work? It also includes ministry.

It also includes worship. Here we're reminded that it also includes some of what
we would call the little things of life. You do it all for the glory of God.

When you think of the little things of life, do you think that includes meals?
Yes. Yes, and this means more than just praying before the beginning of the
meal, which is a good thing to do, I think.

It's good to thank God as you begin a meal, but it also means as you eat it,
you're grateful for what God's done. And as you eat it, you fellowship, you
connect with the people that you're eating with. You're eating with somebody
else.

If you're eating alone, you connect with God even as you eat. Even as you eat,
you realize in this simple thing that I have to do several times each day in
order to stay alive, I want to do even this for God's glory. You can even
breathe for God's glory.

You're all alone. You take a moment to realize the next breath you take in and
out, God gave me the strength to take that breath. It's for God's glory.

It includes the little things of life. It includes the entertainment that you
have. Of course it does.

Some people think, "Oh, if you're going to live for God's glory, you should
never be entertained. You should never have fun in life. God does not have time
for fun and frivolity.

" Well, who do you think thought up entertainment? A long time before we put
colors on a TV screen, God was lighting up the sky. He knows how to entertain.

So when I'm entertained, if I understand I do that for God's glory, I don't
begin to think, "Okay, my entertainment, that's my life over here. That's for
me. And then my ministry, that's for God's glory.

" When you realize it's all for God's glory, all of a sudden life becomes
something that fits together more. It's not these silos of life where I live for
God's glory in one area and I live for myself in another. Okay, God, I'll serve
you really hard and then I'll go over here and rest.

And in my rest, there's me, there's selfishness, and there's even sin. No, it's
all for God's glory, all together for God's glory. That includes how you eat,
your entertainment.

You think that means the words that you use in a conversation with your friends,
with your family? Of course it does. It's all for God's glory.

All means all. And here's the result of deciding to live for the glory of God.
Paul says, "Because I live this way, I don't seek my own good, but I seek the
good of many.

" When you begin to live for God's glory, it's not for my credit, it's not for
my applause, it's for the glory of God. When you begin to live that way, you
don't have to seek your own good anymore. You don't need it.

When I'm living for my glory, when I'm not living for his glory, I need the
applause. I need it to build myself up. I need it because it's what I'm living
for.

It's the currency of my life. It's the currency of my affirmation and my image
of myself, of my love. That's the currency I'm dealing in.

But when all of a sudden, instead of that, I begin to live for God's glory, it
just doesn't matter so much anymore. Oh, it's wonderful if I get an affirmation
for something I did, but even if I didn't, God's still going to be glorified. I
can live in that.

You don't have to seek your own good because you're living for something greater
than your own good. And living for something greater frees you. It frees you in
ways you cannot imagine, to set aside your selfishness and to choose service, to
choose love.

Now, the only place that I found that this happens is in the moment-by-moment
decisions of life. I wish I could make one big decision. Okay, I'm going to live
for God's glory now.

And from now on, I'll just choose based on that. And I'll never have a selfish
temptation again. Well, we're right at the beginning of this chapter.

We're going to face temptations. So the question isn't, what am I thinking in
this moment? The question is, next time I get a chance to serve, am I going to
choose to serve based on my glory or his glory?

What's going to be the motivating factor of my life? Let's pray together right
now that his glory can become more and more the motivator of those decisions of
our life. Our Father, that's what we ask for.

Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. It's yours in the end anyway.
We're fooling ourselves when we pretend that it isn't.

So help us to live in light of reality. It's your glory. And let that light free
us, free us to live a new kind of life.

But we don't have to be so caught up in what people think about us, or so caught
up in what applause we get or didn't get, where we realize that it's all going
to be yours in the end anyway. And that's what we're living for together. Let
that bring a new freedom into my life today.

And in that freedom, I pray that in the moment by moment decisions of life,
Jesus help me to choose for you, help me to choose to love, help me to choose to
serve, help me to choose as you would choose. I ask this, we ask this together,
Jesus, in your name. Amen.

Next week, chapter 11, Paul begins to answer their questions about what to do in
worship. And in this chapter, we're going to see this chapter has some of the
most difficult to understand verses in all of Corinthians, but it also has some
of the holiest moments in the entire book. So see you next week for First
Corinthians chapter 11.