This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Day 3 of our look together through 1 Corinthians chapter 8. We're
looking this week at how you balance knowledge and love. And we've really looked
at three specific things these first couple of days.

We've looked at the truth that you've got to let love lead the way. You have to
know what you don't know. And third, you have to know who you do know.

You have to know that you're known by God. Today, there's a fourth truth in this
passage that God's word brings to us about how you balance knowledge and love.
And the fourth truth is you have to face the power of your influence.

Face the power of your influence. You are more influential than you might want
to imagine. Paul talks about that in verses 9 to 12 when he says this.

"Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a
stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you, who
have this knowledge, eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat
what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died,
is destroyed by your knowledge.

When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience,
you sin against Christ. " These are powerful verses. Now, remember from day one,
eating in an idol's temple didn't necessarily mean worshipping there.

Buying meat that had been sacrificed in an idol's temple or eating in a kind of
restaurant where that meat was cooked near that idol's temple wasn't necessarily
a sin for everyone. But for some who had a weak conscience, who had been brought
up all their lives worshipping idols, for them, it felt like they were
continuing in a false worship. And so Paul is writing to those who feel, "In
Jesus, I am free, and I know that an idol isn't real.

So why not get the meat at half price? " And he says, "The price of meat is not
the issue here. Your love, your influence, that's the main issue in life.

" And he's reminding you, he's reminding all of us, you're not an island. Others
influence you in ways that you know, in ways that you don't know. And just as
importantly, you are a strong influence in other people's lives.

Listen, let's just walk through what Paul has to say that helps us to face that.
I know you may not want to face that. Some of us don't like to face that,
because if I know I'm an influence, then I have a responsibility for that.

Well, guess what? You are an influence. You're an ambassador for Christ.

You're salt and light in the world. You are an influence. Jesus told us.

So what am I going to do about that? And Paul walks us through that. Let's just
be honest about it, he says.

Listen to what Paul says that helps us to be honest about facing our influence
on other people, and especially here on other believers. In verse 9, he says,
"Face up to your influence. Your freedom can become a stumbling block to others.

If all you can say is, I'm free to do whatever I feel is right under the
leadership of Jesus, you have forgotten the responsibility, the stewardship of
your influence. And it's one of your most important stewardships. " And Paul
says, "If you forget that, you become a stumbling block.

You become like a big stone in the path, an obstacle that makes the journey more
difficult. And why would anyone want to make the journey more difficult for a
fellow believer? There are times in life, Paul is saying here, when it's wrong
to be right.

And it's wrong to be right when I'm hurting another believer, when your freedom
becomes a stumbling block. " In verse 10, he says, "Face up to the fact of your
influence. Your actions can actually become a conscience breaker.

They can break somebody else's conscience. " He writes and he says, "The weak
brother is destroyed by your knowledge. Their conscience, their weak conscience
is hurt.

" Can someone actually be influenced toward wrong as you do what is right for
you? Of course they can. Absolutely they can.

You have a freedom in Christ. You've grown a certain number of years in Jesus.
And because you've grown a certain number of years, you have a freedom to do
certain things that they may not have to do, have that same freedom to act in
certain ways.

But because they have just come to Christ, if for them to act in that way, to
not pray in that situation, to have a drink in that situation, to have a drink
at all, to watch that kind of thing, to be involved in that kind of
entertainment, to do this, to not do that, to wear this, to not wear that, their
freedom is not where yours is. So what do you do? You love the person who's
weaker.

That's what Jesus did. Now, the obvious question is, where do you draw the
lines? How far should we go in this?

We'll drill into this a little bit more deeply later this week. But for now, let
me just say, there are no set lines here. If you've got to put lines on this,
then you've missed the whole point.

The point is not what you know. That's knowledge. The only line is, you
recognize your love for others.

And you act out of that love for others. Paul says, face up to your influence.
Your freedom can become a stumbling block.

Face up to your influence. Your actions can break someone else's conscience.
Face up to your influence, he says in verses 11 and 12.

Your knowledge can actually become sin. That's how blunt he is about this. Your
knowledge can become sin.

You're right. You're so right that your brother, your sister is hurt. You sin
against them.

And Paul says, when you sin against them, you sin against Christ. Being right,
he says in this case, wow, is sinning against Christ. You can help people,
someone who is weaker in the faith, by what you choose not to do.

And you can help them by what you choose to do. I may have a clear conscience to
do something that I know, if I do that thing, maybe it's take a drink in a
restaurant. Maybe somebody in the church knows me and they see me and I'm a
leader in the church.

And maybe they're part of Celebrate Recovery, our recovery program here. And
they think because they saw me take a drink, well, pastors do it. I mean, they
love the Lord.

So maybe it's OK for me, too. And maybe that drink that I took, even though it's
not going to hurt me at all, is all of a sudden going to hurt them because of
their weak conscience, especially toward alcohol. That's why, as pastors and
leaders at Saddleback Church, we choose not to drink.

We just agreed not to do that together. The Bible doesn't say not to drink. It
says not to get drunk.

It doesn't say you can never take a drink. We just give up that freedom that we
have, that biblical freedom that we have. Why?

Because we don't want to hurt a weak brother. We don't want to hurt a weak
sister. Now, if I get prideful about giving up that freedom, then it's a totally
different thing.

Then it's pride and legalism, and we'll talk about that later this week. Right
now, I'm talking about giving up a right that you have, a freedom that you have,
because you love somebody else. And because you do that, sometimes there's
things that you choose not to do.

Other times, there are things that you choose to do. You may have a constant
relationship with Christ in which you're talking to Him all through the day,
every day. And so because of that, you don't feel a need to pray at the
beginning of a meal, or you don't feel a need to pray at the beginning of every
meeting that you have in church or with a group in church that are doing things.

You just feel a freedom not to do that, because you're talking to Jesus all the
time anyway. And you feel like it's a little fake and phony sometimes, and
people have to pray at the beginning of everything. But what if there's a weaker
brother or a weaker sister who, for them, praying at the beginning of something
is a recognition that Jesus is there?

And for you to say, "Oh, we don't need to pray," somehow it would hurt their
faith. And they would think, "We don't need to pray," because they don't have
the constant prayer life that you do yet. What do you do in that situation?

You pray. You pray for the sake of the weaker brother or sister. How could it
hurt to pray?

Why become stubborn and choose not to pray just because you feel that they're
expecting you to pray or needing you to pray in some way as a weaker brother or
sister? Why not do what's going to best meet their need in Christ? You see, all
of us, myself included, we can become so insistent about our freedoms that we
forget really why we were put on this earth.

I was put on this earth to love God and to love others. And every opportunity I
get to do that, that's what I want to do. That's what you want to do.

And one of the ways that we do that is by giving up some of these freedoms.
Because there's no way in the world I want to hurt somebody who's a weaker
brother or sister. As we pray today, I want to pray for wisdom.

Because we need wisdom in this area. To know what to give up and what not to
give up. To know when somebody's pushing me and when really it's an action I
need to take because of love.

Let's pray. Jesus, we need your wisdom. Paul's giving your wisdom to those in
Corinth who are facing this situation of meat in an idol's temple.

We face different situations. And in the situations we face, we want your
wisdom. We want to know what your spirit would lead.

We want love to lead the way. We want to act out of the fact that we are known
by you and not some sense of pride in our knowledge. And we want to act out of a
deep desire to give an influence that would glorify you.

So Jesus, in the situations we face, even today, we pray for your wisdom. When
we feel selfishness rising inside of us, when we feel pride, that seed in us,
help us to recognize it and help us to act against it. Help us to act in love
instead.

We pray this. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to take a look together at how to place the priority on
people.