Understanding How To Be More Like Jesus This 4th Of July

Paul Basden: Well, everybody, that is our topic today, It's my right. The truth is that rights run deep in the psyche of all of us as Americans. From our earliest years, we learned all about the Declaration of Independence. In fact, you probably remember these words that have become immortal in our country: "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men," sorry, ladies, you didn't count then, but you do today. That's Jim's message next week, by the way, don't want to miss it. "... that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Everybody knows that. It was signed July 4th, 1776. But a decade later, a few more years than that, they had to write a constitution to guide our government. And then they added amendments to the constitution that we call the Bill of Rights to guarantee those rights.

Of course in the First Amendment itself, you get the freedom of speech, the right to free press, the right to assemble, the right to have religious services when we want. I dare say that we Americans have more rights than any country that has ever been on the face of the earth. Now, “rights” means “freedom.” If you have a right to do something, then you're free to do it. If you're free to do something, you have a right to do it. And if you don't have either one of those, then you don't. But freedom is also a gift. It's a gift that comes with responsibilities. That means freedom is never absolute; it always has limits. If I asked you today to think of five ways that freedom is not absolute, theoretically or personally, you can come up with five easily, because we know that that's true in all of life. But I'll give you a silly example.

Let's say that you like to play softball and you're pretty good, at least in your own mind. And so you join a rec league. You join the work league, whichever one. You try, you make the team, you get to play. You're free to play whatever position you're good at. But you know what you're not free to do? When you're up to bat, you're not free to get four strikes before you're out. Why? Because the rules of baseball say there are three. You're not that free. And then, during your half of the inning, you're not free to have four outs before you have to go out to the outfield. Why? Because baseball says there are three outs. Are you with me? Freedom is always limited. There's no such thing as absolute freedom.

It's not just we Americans who love our rights, it's we as Christians. If you're a follower of Jesus, you have incredible rights and Christian freedom, I think one of the greatest gifts of the gospel actually has two sides to it. The first is something that God has done for us. It is very objective, and it is this, Jesus' death bought our freedom. I use that word bought intentionally because that's what it means when you look in the New Testament and you read the word redeem or ransom. Both of those are market terms, and they talk about putting money on the barrel head to buy someone out of slavery, perhaps a POW who's now been a slave and family member goes and finds a person and pays for them to come out, maybe a child who was abandoned and they become a slave and family members, down the road, find him or her and pay to get the person out. So you're rescuing them from their slavery.

The Apostle Peter knew what it was like to be rescued from slavery, and here's how he said it, "God paid a ransom," that's the word I'm talking about, the money to make you free, "to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value, but rather it was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless lamb of God." So, Jesus bought our freedom when he died for us. When he hung on the cross, He bought our freedom from the curse of sin. He bought our freedom from the fear of death. He bought our freedom from condemnation. Romans 8:1 says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." So the first piece of this Christian freedom is that Jesus bought our freedom. God did that.

The second piece is that we have to learn to live out our freedom. Christ did this for us, now we have to figure out how to put on that freedom every day and live it everywhere we go, at home, work, play, you name it. God wants us to be free, but he wants us to live it out wisely. And that's our topic today. We're in 1 Corinthians 8, 9 and 10, focusing on what it means to be free as a Christian. I'll just tell you right now, since we all like to use GPSs to tell us where we're going, here's where we're going, the bottom line. Love means limiting our rights for the sake of the gospel. You and I have tons of rights, but Jesus says, "Love is the greatest commandment." And so, love means that when we have rights, if necessary, we will limit those rights for the sake of the good news of Jesus and his power in people's lives.

Now, the Apostle Paul has two audiences here in these three chapters in 1 Corinthians. His first audience is believers. His second is unbelievers. So let's look first at believers. It's limiting our rights so we can love other believers. I'm going to be toggling back and forth between chapter eight and chapter 10 just so you can see the most salient verses. Here's the question that was being asked in Corinth, "Now regarding your question about food that has been offered to idols." This is the third time Paul has written in 1 Corinthians, "Now regarding your question." The first one was in chapter six, "Now regarding your questions about sex." Chapter seven, "Regarding your questions about marriage, divorce, remarriage, and celibacy." Now chapters 8, 9 and 10, "Now regarding your question about meat or food that has been offered to idols."

Now, at first blush, that is about the silliest question you can imagine. Because the question is simply, as Christians, can we eat meat if it was previously sacrificed to idols? Well, I have to tell you, I can't remember the last time I went to Kroger and they said, "By the way, beware of this meat, it was recently sacrificed to an idol." Nor has it happened to you. So to us, we read this and we go, "Next chapter," keep spinning through 1 Corinthians, "Oh, chapter 13, love, that's good," And we miss what God's trying to say right here. So since this makes no sense to us today, but it was a big enough deal for God to want it included in the scriptures that we read, let's look at the backstory.

Corinth was filled with pagan temples that had inside them pagan idols that represented pagan gods. The pagan priest offered the meat to the idols like a meal, like "We'd like to appease you. Here's some meat. Do you feel better? Will you be nice to us this month?" That's how they did it. Leftover meat, of course, was sold in the marketplace to butchers and grocers so that they could sell it to people like you and me who would just be the average common shoppers so they could make a profit. Now, here's a picture of the archeological remains, the ruins of downtown Corinth. This was the agora or the forum. It was three acres of shops and stalls. And you can still see how clearly it's preserved. In fact, Corinth along with Ephesus are two of the greatest places in the world to see this kind of thing.

In some of these stalls, people would be selling meat that just the day before had been offered to idols and all the leftover meat was available for sale. And now Christians had a question, "Can we buy that meat? Should we buy it? Should we eat it? Should we serve it to others when they come to our home? Should we eat it if someone serves it to us?" The Corinthian church was split right down the middle. About half of them said, "By all means eat. For crying out loud, it's just meat. Go eat it. Chow down. Enjoy. God gave it, quit being so silly to ask the question." The other half said, "Don't tell me what silly is. I have memories and a seared conscience from all those years in that phony religion. Those idols represent real gods, and they petrify me."

Now they're asking for a yes or no from the Apostle Paul. "Should we eat the meat that was offered in the temple or should we not?" This is very instructive. Paul does not give a yes or no answer. You see, when God wants to teach us something, he's real clear about yes and no. But sometimes, there's gray. There's black, there's white, and then sometimes there's gray. And where there's gray and God has not said a definite yes or definite no, the answer is to look for the principles. And Paul gives principles here to their question. So let's look at it. We'll apply it as we go.

Principle number one, Paul says, "Those Greek gods aren't real. The idols in the temple, they represent phony gods. There's only one God." Here's how chapter eight verses four through six reads. "So what about eating meat that has been offered to idols? Well, we all know that an idol is not really a God. There's only one God. There may be so-called gods both in heaven and on earth, and some people actually worship many gods and many lords. But for us," and this was probably a song they sang, a chorus or a creed that they recited because it's in such beautiful symmetry, "there is one God, the Father, by whom all things were created and for whom we live. And there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created and through whom we live."

Now, what's going on? Paul was trying to clarify that the Greeks worship many gods. If there was something that was important to them, they had a god for it. But he says, "As Christians, you should know there's only one God, our Abba, our Father, and there's only one Lord, Jesus, our king." So Paul says, "Forget the phony idols, they're not real."

Principle two, you're free. You are absolutely free. You have every right to eat that meat. Chapter 10, I'm going to skip over because that's where he gives his conclusion. Here's how it reads, "So you may eat any meat that is sold in the marketplace without raising questions of conscience. For 'the earth is the Lord's and everything in it,'" quoting from the Psalms there. "If someone who isn't a believer asks you home for dinner, accept the invitation if you want to. Eat whatever is offered to you without raising questions of conscience. If I can thank God for the food and enjoy it, why should I be condemned for eating it?" Three cheers for freedom. Go get that meat, eat it up, and don't think a second thing about it.

Now, what Paul's trying to do here is show them that Christian freedom is real. And if it doesn't bother their conscience to do this, they shouldn't worry about it. However, now he states a contingency. All the people in Corinth who wanted to eat the meat were thrilled with his first two principles. But now Paul's going to say, "You know what? That freedom is not unlimited."

So principle three, your freedom has limits. Use it responsibly. All right, let's look at chapter eight verse seven. "However, not all believers know this." Now I'm pulling back in from the earlier verses four through six, where Paul said that we know there's only one God and only one Lord. He says, "But not all believers, all Christians know this." Because they come out of that pagan Corinthian background with many gods. "Some are accustomed to thinking of idols as being real, so when they eat the food that's been offered to the idols, they think of it as the worship of real gods, and their weak consciences are violated."

Incredible teaching. Now, you see the rub. Some Christians were still haunted by memories of false gods in the temple. And so, if they were to eat anything offered to what they thought were real gods, it would absolutely destroy their sense of obedience and faithfulness to Christ. Now, I'm not sure this analogy works exactly, but let me try it, okay? Moms and dads, did you ever have a child who did not like the dark, they didn't want to sleep in the dark? Okay? If you ever had that, you know exactly where this is going. I was one of those kids that didn't like sleeping in the dark. My girls didn't like it, and all my grandsons don't like it. Recently, we had over our oldest grandsons to spend the night, they said, "Cut the lights out, Pop." I thought, "Really?" "Cut the lights out. We don't need those lights." Praise God, they're growing up.

But prior to that, if you tried to talk to your kids about the reality that there are really no monsters in the closet and no monsters under the bed, you got nowhere. You know what it's like to argue with a three-year-old, illogical child? You get nowhere. And they are so convinced that when you turn the lights on and go over to the closet and open up, say, "See, no monsters," they say, "Yeah, they don't come out till it's dark." And you say, "Look under the bed with me." They're not getting down to look under the bed with you. So you put the flashlight, "See, no monster." "Well, they don't come out till it's dark." All right.

Now, you can be stubborn and make them sleep in the dark. I've tried that. It essentially meant I got no sleep. So you probably came to the conclusion that I did, it is better to adjust to them than to make them adjust to me. I know the truth. You know the truth. Your kids don't. But because you know the truth, and you're an adult, you have the responsibility to adjust life for that season until they come to know the truth. I say all that because that's very similar to what was happening in the Corinthian church.

We continue with this third principle, and here's what Paul writes, "But you must be careful so that your freedom does not cause others with a weaker conscience," or we could even say with an overactive imagination, "to stumble. For if others see you with your superior knowledge eating in the temple of an idle, won't they be encouraged to violate their conscience by eating food that has been offered to an idol? So because of your superior knowledge, a weak believer for whom Christ died will be destroyed. And when you sin against other believers by encouraging them to do something they believe is wrong, you're sinning against Christ. So if what I eat causes another believer to sin," now here's Paul with his hyperbolic best, "I will never eat meat again as long as I live, for I don't want to cause another believer to stumble."

If you're wondering what this is all about, let me try to restate principle three and see if this makes more sense. Don't let your freedom cause a believer with a weaker conscience to stumble on their spiritual journey. Paul used the word weak, I've used the word weak, what's that mean? Well, weak doesn't mean immature. Weak doesn't mean ignorant. It means you have an overactive conscience, like the kids with overactive imagination. I grew up as a Baptist pastor's kid. I had a very overactive conscience. There weren't a lot of things that were right. There were a whole lot of things that were wrong. Man, did we have a long list of wrong things and a few right things. So throughout my life, I've struggled to figure out what is ok and what’s not. I mean, I didn't taste wine until I was in my 40s, and it was a Baptist deacon who taught me.

My point is I couldn't go there because it seemed wrong to me. And Paul uses really strong language here. He says that when a mature, strong Christian does something that is within their rights that actually is against the conscience of a weak Christian, then his language is incredible here, he says, "If it destroys a weak believer, you’ve sinned against them, and you’ve sinned against Christ. And you have caused them to stumble." Wow. And so God calls us to limit our freedom if our freedom harms another. Instead of saying, "I'm standing on my rights, and don't get in my way or I'll run you over," we're saying, "If this negatively impacts you as a believer, I don't have to do this. I'm free to love you."

Now, let me clarify that this principle refers only to morally neutral issues. Paul's not saying this about murder or adultery or stealing or lying. He would never say, "Look, I think it's just fine to murder. But if your conscience bothers you and you can't murder, tell you what, when we hang out together, I won't kill anyone." Understandable. You think it's silly. I do too. But the point is Paul is dealing with morally neutral issues, gray issues, not black and white.

All right, principle four, the limit to freedom is determined by love. Again, going back to the first few verses and into the end of chapter 10, "Now, regarding your question about food that has been offered to idols, yes, we know that we all have knowledge, but while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. So don't be concerned for your own good but for the good of others."

Paul is saying every time you face a decision, there are two important ingredients. The first is “the facts,” just the black and white facts as you see them, as you can try to understand them.

There was a man in my church in Birmingham, John Josee, one of the best businessmen I've ever known. His is a great story. He went to the University of Alabama with no money, paid his way by shining whitewall tires in a Goodyear tire plant in Tuscaloosa. Worked 40 hours a week, slept about five hours a night, made great grades, went on to become one of the wealthiest and wisest Christian businessmen I've ever known. When I would talk to John about what I needed to know for a particular decision I was trying to lead the church in, he would say, "Basden, get the facts. You don't have all the facts." I'd say, "John, come on, man, I'm a good researcher, I got the facts." He goes, "No, you don't. Trust me. You don't have all the facts. Get the facts, then you can make a good decision." So, first off, we don't want to say that knowledge is unimportant or that facts are unimportant. But what we want to say is that there's a second ingredient in all decision-making, it is the impact of that decision on other people.

And that's what Paul is trying to get us to see here. We need the facts, but the facts aren't the only thing. We need to also realize the impact on other people and then make sure that love is guiding us. Because Paul says, "When it comes down to knowledge or love," (in the New International it says, "Knowledge puffs up.") It makes us think we're so smart, while love builds up. It makes life better for other people. So what Paul's doing here is he is applying love your neighbor, the second great commandment, to a very sticky, thorny situation in his day. Now, with that in mind, let me give you an example of what I think this looked like in my life earlier, and I'll ask you some questions about what it looks like for you today.

When I was 27, I went to pastor the First Baptist Church of Clifton, Texas. It’s a wonderful church in Central Texas. While I was there, I made friends in just the first few months with three guys, Gary, Darrell and Fred who loved to fish on Lake Whitney. I mean, they'd fish for stripers, for catfish, if it was out there, they fished, and they caught. So they began to take me, and I loved going fishing with those guys. At about nine or ten, they'd say, "Okay, it's time to sign off." And we'd go back to one of their homes, and they would clean the fish and filet the fish, and they would wrap the fish for me. They spoiled me rotten. I would take that fish home, and Denise and I would put it in the freezer and then cook some up. But I began to notice on Sundays that when those guys were all together with their other friends, they were laughing. I would just come into the conversation, and they were talking about the fact that they'd fished all night.

"Well, I didn't fish all night. What do you mean you fished all night, you brought me home at 9:00?" Of course, they brought me home at 9:00. They wanted to fish all night and have their six-packs in the boat so they could fish and drink and fish and drink and fish and drink. Now, I thought to myself, "I wonder why they didn't do that in my presence." Well, number one, they knew I was the pastor of First Baptist Church. Number two, they might have not wanted to make me think less of them, and I would have. Because of my strict conscience, I would have thought less of those guys. I wouldn't now, but I would have at 27. And I think way down deep they knew that it would be a stumbling block for me. I mean, they might not have used this language, but they knew that I was the brother with the weaker conscience. And so, rather than expose me to the alcohol, which would have really confused me and frustrated me and made me not trust or love them, they just said, "We'll do it when you're gone."

You could say, "Well, isn't that hypocritical? Isn't that two-faced? Maybe. Or maybe, and I think this is more likely, they were simply trying to practice this teaching. They were limiting their freedom because it would make me stumble. Okay, that may not be an issue for you but now let me ask about this. When you go home today, you're absolutely free to talk to anybody you want about your political views, as vociferously as you like. Vociferously means angrily. Sorry, I haven't used it in a decade. I thought it was a perfect moment to use that word. The question is, when you speak like that to people, are they aware, is there any way for them to know that your anger is what's driving your words instead of your love? I think it's pretty evident. So are you free to say anything? Of course, you are. Are you free to tell somebody their view is stupid? Of course, you are. Is that love? Not really.

Or you're free to go home today and post anything you want on Facebook or Twitter. The question is, when you post that, are you doing it in such a way that when people read it they go, "Oh, that person's filled with love"? Doesn't mean you can't have an opinion, but how are you communicating it? All right, that's a big topic. Where is God calling you to limit your freedom for the sake of other Christians? But Paul had another audience in mind, and almost like a parenthesis right in the middle in chapter 10, he talks about limiting our rights so we can love unbelievers. Now the apostle Paul had a passion in life and he had a strategy for that passion. Here is the passion. He said, "Even though I am a free man," he's standing on this freedom, standing on his rights, "with no master, I've become a slave," I've given up all my rights, "I've become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ." That was Paul's drive in life. It was his consuming passion. "I want as many people as possible to come to Christ."

Now how did he do that? Well, he had a strategy, and here it is, "I've become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some." A passion, a strategy. And I like to put it in shorter terms because I think mathematically and alphanumerically, so here's what I pulled up here. Paul's passion and strategy is to save AMAP by becoming AT2AP, as many as possible by becoming all things to all people. Now, what in the world does it mean to become all things to all people? Well, I think the New Living translation helps explain that a little bit more. Here's how they translate verse 22, "I try to find common ground," that's all things to all people in other translations, "with everyone, doing everything I can to save some." So Paul, the apostle, became like a Jew when he was with Jews, and he was very strict with his kosher diet. But with Gentiles, he relaxed the kosher diet because they didn't care about it.

So I ask you, are you willing to enter into an unbeliever's life to find out how they see the world, to figure out what you have that is common ground, that's overlapping in your life, in their life, and try to help them and be their friend and understand them? That's what common ground means. Now, again, we're only talking about morally neutral issues here. I don't ever want to hear you say, "Pastor Paul said something like this, 'If I want to go help the drug dealer down the street come to faith in Christ, I think I'll go become friends with them, help him sell drugs. He'll know I'm his friend. Then he'll listen to me when I tell him about Jesus.'" No, what you might say, however, is something like this, "The drug dealer down the street loves to go to the hookah lounge every Friday for lunch. Well, I don't think the hookah lounge is a place of terrible immorality, so I'm going to go there. I'm not going to sell drugs. I may or may not smoke the hookah pipe." If you're thinking, "Paul, that's a terrible example," try the peppermint, I've heard. You could see whether or not that's any good.

But here is the point, the aim of “all things to all people” is cultural relevance without gospel compromise. That's exactly how we started Preston Trail. Jim and I were traditional pastors who loved to teach God's Word. But when we moved here and found out that there were more birth through five-year-olds in the Frisco Independent School District than there were kindergartners through 12th graders, we said, "Oh-oh, those little kids and those sleepy parents aren't going to come hear us preach on the weekends. Let's do a service just for kids and their parents." And here it is. Let me tell you, we rocked out in theater 16 in AMC Theater for four and a half years.

Now, would Jim and I have preferred to preach? Yes. Were we free to preach? Yes. But instead, we did something for kids and their parents, that those parents might hear the gospel through their young children. And that's been our heartbeat for 19 years. That's why Jim and I had just started a series of talks on our YouTube channel for what we call The One. Remember Jesus said, "There are 99 sheep, the shepherd said they're fine. But the one that's lost is who the shepherd's looking for." So we preach to the 99 here as often as we can, but we want to do something for the one who's just scrolling through YouTube channels. And so here is what we're doing. I've just finished nine talks on really big questions. This is the website right here. Here are some of the topics. If you can't see them, I'll read them. "Does God exist? Who is Jesus, really? Are all religions true? Does science disprove Christianity?" And more like that. They're short, six minutes each.

So if you know somebody who is really struggling with Christianity or they don't believe the Bible, or maybe they're an atheist or agnostic, tell them about this link, send it to them. And then tell them that you will watch one with them that they care about, and you'll talk about it with them. You're only committing six minutes in the connection, but we're trying to help you be all things to all people. And believe it or not, this comes into play even in two weekends on July 4th weekend. We have every right to have a rousing worship service right here, great music, meaningful message. But we're not. We're limiting our rights, and we're giving up that precious time to send you out into your neighborhood to have a party for people that might not ever come to church, especially on July 4th. Denise and I are doing that. We're limiting our rights, and we're doing that with some neighbors. We can't wait to have a party. We're going to have an ice cream party, some homemade ice cream and some it's got to be Cookie Two Step. I mean, that's God's will!

So, we're going to have some really great ice cream that day. And I just ask you, are you willing to do the same thing? Why are we doing it? “All things to all people to win as many as possible.”

So what's God saying to you today? Well, I think what he's saying to you is you're free, in Jesus you're free. You're free to love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And you're free to love your neighbors as yourself. But every time you love your neighbor as yourself, you're going to have to limit some of your rights in order to love them well. And so it's going to be so easy for you to think, "Well, how do I do that? I don't even understand that. That seems like a contradiction." Well, perhaps it's a paradox.

501 years ago, a German monk wrote a little pamphlet about Christian freedom, and here's what he said, and he captures this paradox, "A Christian is a most free lord of all, subject to none." He’s got all the rights. "A Christian is a most dutiful servant of all, subject to all." So which is it? Are you free? Are you bound? Yes and yes. Do you have rights, or do you have limits? Yes and yes. That's God's point. God's Word to you today is that loving others is greater than standing on your rights. And if you want to know somebody who modeled this perfectly, his name is Jesus. Because before he ever came to this earth, he was the eternal Son of God. He had every right to say, "I don't want to go to earth. I don't want to become a little impregnated egg in a Jewish girl's womb. I don't want to do that. I don't want to be misunderstood. I don't want to be rejected. I don't want to be betrayed. I don't want to be denied. I don't want to be crucified."

And instead, he said, "Holy Father, I'm here to serve. May your will be done." So today will you look at Jesus’ example and say, "Instead of standing on my rights, Christ, I'm following you. I give up my rights every time I need to that I may serve someone in love."

That's the call of Christ on our lives. Let's pray. During this moment of prayer, I just want to ask you a couple of questions. First, can you think of some Christians in your lives that you may, without thinking about it or being aware of it, run over because of some rights that you're claiming? Is God calling you to think about them more and not cause them to have a faith crisis? If so, that's a choice you can make, and it's a choice of love.

Do you have some non-Christian friends, acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors? Would you look for common ground with them? Would you try to figure out what it means to be all things to them so that they might come to know Christ? Would you pray about being a July 4th pop-up party host in your neighborhood for the very purpose of reaching people that don't know Jesus? Love your neighbor as yourself. O Lord, we need you because we like to stand on those rights. It's our selfish way of baptizing our own desires and pretending that they're all right, and sometimes they're way wrong. So work in our hearts. As we sang earlier, may we be more like Jesus. In his name, we pray. Amen.



Recorded in Frisco, Texas.