A Picture of Loyalty

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

Well, like a lot of you, I wear on my left hand a little gold band. And it’s really important to me, not because it was super expensive. It was my grandfather’s.

Didn’t cost me anything. And I know gold is pricey right now, but it’s not really the expense that is what makes it important. It’s what it represents.

See, I put this ring on and I had to run to the bathroom beforehand to make sure I could get it off before I tried to stand up here and show it to you. I didn’t want to be pulling on it. But when I put this on, when I wear it, which is most of the time, unless I’m working with bleach or electrical stuff, when I wear it, I look at it and I think of my wife.

And I think of how much she means to me. I think of how important our marriage is to me. I think of all of those things.

It’s an important symbol to me of that relationship. Now, that ring doesn’t make me married, right? If I lose it, if I lose that ring one day, she’s not off the hook, right?

No, because the ring doesn’t make me married. It doesn’t make me loyal to my wife. It’s a symbol of those things.

And it’s a symbol of those things to other people. And I never realized until I was married how much people pay attention to that. Ladies, I guess, pay attention to that.

My wife will look. I thought she was married. Was she wearing a ring?

I couldn’t tell you if she had fingers. I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.

But people look at that and say, but she was wearing a ring. Did you see that? I wonder what that means.

It means she’s been to the jewelry store, I guess. But these rings mean something, don’t they? They’re supposed to.

They represent the relationship. And ultimately, the relationship is more valuable than the physical object itself. And if I’m disloyal to my wife, that’s a huge problem.

But if I’m disloyal to her while I’m emphasizing my loyalty to her, then I add hypocrisy on top of that. So we’ve got a few problems. And the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth along these same lines when it came to the Lord’s Supper. Now, he doesn’t mention wedding rings.

I’m not sure what their custom and tradition was in the Roman world at that time about rings and I don’t know. But he writes about symbols and loyalty in a relationship, and that’s what we’re going to look at this morning. We’re going to be in 1 Corinthians 10.

We’re taking a little detour this morning from our study of Philippians because with us doing the Lord’s Supper, taking the Lord’s Supper together this morning at the end of the service, I wanted to take some time to prepare us, Some time for us to reflect on what it means. Not necessarily time this morning to go back over every aspect of what it means, but to look at some of what God’s Word says about the Lord’s Supper that we don’t necessarily always look at. So we’re going to be in 1 Corinthians 10 this morning.

If you would, turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 10. If you don’t have your Bible or don’t know where to find it, it is on the screen for you. But we’re going to be in 1 Corinthians 10.

He’s writing to the church at Corinth. And we’re going to start in verse 14 and go through verse 22 this morning and see what Paul says about the Lord’s Supper that compares in this way to this idea of a symbol of loyalty. Starting in verse 14, he says, Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

I speak as to wise men. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?

The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body, for we all partake of that one bread. Observe Israel after the flesh.

Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What am I saying then? That an idol is anything?

Or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?

Are we stronger than He? And you may be seated. So when Paul writes this, this section where he talks a little bit about the Lord’s Supper, and it’s not all he has to say about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians.

He spends quite a bit of time straightening them out on this practice. But in this particular instance, he’s talking about idolatry. He’s warning the Christians at Corinth that they need to avoid pagan idolatry at all costs.

And before you and I turn off our brains and say, well, this doesn’t apply to us because we don’t bow down to little statues, we need to draw some comparisons between their world and ours. Now, Corinth was a town that was known for such rampant immorality that it had spawned a new word. Folks, they were so bad, even the other Romans thought they needed to get it together, if that tells you something.

They had invented a new word to Corinthianize that I don’t want to speculate on exactly what it means, but it had to do with excessive immorality. That even the other Romans said, if you were going to just excess that was beyond what they thought was reasonable, you were acting like a Corinthian. And the people in this church at Corinth had been saved out of that lifestyle.

Now we tend to think of people in the Bible as though they’re perfect and saintly. We think of these early churches as they were all just wonderful people. They’re humans just like you and I are.

They had the same struggles that you and I have. They had, in many cases, the same pasts that we have. Now it may look a little different, but the same basic principles.

These people had come from a rough background. They had come from a background where they had been involved in just about everything that they could think of that would be displeasing to God. They had done it.

And so before we write them off and say, well, this doesn’t apply to us because we don’t bow down to statues, that was just part of their idolatry. All idolatry ultimately is putting something other than God in a place that only God deserves to have in our lives. And folks, our world is rife with idolatry.

Folks, our society is rife with pagan idolatry. It is all around us. If we’re not careful, it creeps into our hearts and into our lives as well.

Even people that would say, I’m not worshiping anything, ultimately, they end up worshiping self. And their own desires can become an idol. Anything that we place in the position in our lives that only God deserves to occupy, it’s idolatry.

And we are all going to worship something because we’re wired to do it. And so when we read here idolatry, don’t think of it as just little statues. That was part of it.

But any time we take things that we know are displeasing to God, and we say we’d rather have those things over God’s desires for our lives, we’re falling into the same boat. Any time we look at what the world wants and what the world says is right, when it stands in contrast to what God says is right, and we pick what the world says, we’re in the same boat. And I say we, not you.

we. This is just human nature. So knowing that they came from this background, knowing that they were going to struggle with the backward pull of these sinful impulses, he tells them to flee.

Now some of you in this room have been Christians for a long time. I trusted Jesus as my Savior 30 years ago. And that seems like a long time, but I know there’s some of you in here that have been walking with Jesus even longer.

Do you ever feel the temptation of sin that you had before? Those of you who’ve been Christians for many, many years, you can speak up. Do you still feel the temptation to go back to the old ways?

So let that be encouraging to those of you who are newer believers and think, there’s something wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with you that isn’t wrong with all of us, right? It’s called being human.

It’s called the sin nature. And it never goes away. We just learn with the Holy Spirit’s help to battle it.

But this is something that we all deal with, this pull toward idolatry, whether it’s little statues, or whether it’s a little statue of ourselves in the middle of our heart, there’s this pull of idolatry. And the warning is there for all of us, flee from idolatry. Run.

I remember as a teenager being told at Bible studies and FCA conferences and things like that, you need to fight temptation. You know, that can be dumb advice, especially to a teenager. In many places, the Bible says flee temptation.

Because a lot of times we are not strong enough to stand and fight. There’s no shame in just getting out of dodge when temptation arises. He uses the same terminology here.

He doesn’t tell us to fight idolatry. He tells us to flee. Run from the very impulse.

Run from anything that’s going to suck you back in that direction. My beloved, flee from idolatry. He says, run, get away, escape by any means possible before you get sucked in again.

And then he tells them in verse 15, I speak as to wise men, judge for yourselves what I say. He’s acknowledging here they are smart enough, especially with the Holy Spirit, they are smart enough to understand that what He’s telling them is for their own good. Sometimes we hear that, that God is telling us to run from temptation and we don’t necessarily want to.

But we know that whether we want to run from the temptation or not, it’s for our own good to get away. Because that old lifestyle, that siren song was constantly calling into them and just giving it a little bit, We think sometimes that’ll satisfy. We’ll just give in a little bit.

That was never going to be enough. That was never going to be enough. And honestly, it showed where their hearts were.

The fact that they said, well, I’ve got to have just a little bit of the old lifestyle, a little bit of the old way of doing things. It showed that their hearts, that there was something wrong in their hearts. Because Paul’s making the point through this passage that our behavior, as the Bible says in so many other places, that our behavior reflects what’s in the heart.

Our outward behavior reflects what’s going on on the inside. And he makes the case that it’s normal to understand that your religious rituals are going to reflect what you’re worshiping. What you’re doing on the outside is going to reflect where you are on the inside.

And he tells us in verses 18 through 20 that we participate in things and what we participate in, it reveals what we are devoted to. He tells them in verse 18, observe Israel after the flesh. He’s talking about the nation of Israel.

He says, look at their religious devotion. Look at their practices. Look at the things that they do.

Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? He’s talking about the priests in the Old Testament. In some circumstances, with some sacrifices, they were allowed to eat the meat that was sacrificed on the altar as part of God’s provision for them.

But he said that the priests that are there offering the sacrifices and they’re sitting down to eat from the sacrifices, Aren’t they doing that because they are devoted to this sacrificial system? By them participating in this, they’re showing where their hearts are. John MacArthur says, participation in religious rites has deep spiritual meaning.

It implies a real union between the worshippers and the one being worshipped. What we worship outwardly reflects what we’re worshipping inwardly. And again, some of these people as believers were tempted in Corinth to go back to the way of the world around them, the way of their previous lives, they were tempted to go back.

There’s no reason I can’t hang with my old friends at the temple. Zeus isn’t real. So what does it matter if I go and burn a little incense? He’s not real. Paul’s saying what you worship reflects where your heart is.

And so we might look at it and say, well, it’s just a little incense. It’s just a little prayer. Just taking some flowers to the altar.

Whatever we struggle with, we might say it’s just a little bit of this or that. But Paul says God sees tremendous importance in our practices. And yet in spite of the importance that God puts on it, the Corinthians were still torn between wanting to follow Christ and wanting to still have some connection with this old way of living.

And so Paul says in verse 19, What am I saying then, that an idol is anything? Or what is offered to an idol is anything? He said this isn’t about the worthless statues.

They’re not alive, they’re not anything. And by me saying that this is a big deal, I’m not saying that they have any power. But he said there is a power behind these statues that you’re not considering.

In verse 20, he says, rather the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. Listen, because this is very important and this is not my opinion. This is what the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul.

They thought they were just burning incense to some lifeless statues and it wasn’t a big deal. He said, these Gentiles around you are sacrificing to demons. If we worship something else besides God, we are doing the bidding of demonic powers. Now, I don’t think I’m getting charismatic in here this morning and start seeing the devil behind every bush.

The fact is, God wants and deserves your entire worship. Who is it that from the very beginning has wanted to rob God of the worship that he deserves? Satan.

From the very beginning, he’s wanted nothing more than to take the worship that God and God alone deserves and funnel it someplace else. Am I saying that if you get a little too wrapped up in wealth and start to make money an idol that you’re purposely being demonic? No, I’m just..

. There is a demonic power at work. The forces of hell are thrilled when we worship something else in place of God.

We don’t have to worship Satan. They’re good with that as long as we’re not worshiping God. And in some cases with these false gods, he said, you’re sacrificing to literal demons.

So again, my point in this is not to say, oh, you’re demonic because you’re too wrapped up in this or that. My point is to say that there is a spiritual dimension to what we worship and what we participate in that I don’t think we always realize. And God’s word is very clear that Satan is happy when something other than God is worshipped.

I don’t think any of us want to make the devil happy, do we? In my house, we can’t even say devil because Charlie thinks it’s a bad word. It’s a bad concept.

It’s a bad person. But he tells us, don’t say devil. It’s a bad word.

You just said it. The hypocrisy. By worshiping something besides God, they were actually serving the interests of demonic powers.

And I have seen that more clearly in our nation over the last couple months than I thought I ever would. Because some of the. .

. I’m going to move on. Paul says, I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.

Because to serve those demonic powers, to forward their interests, to even flirt with them a little bit, was to have fellowship with those demons. And this attachment to the pagan rituals was particularly problematic because they were all the while professing their devotion to Christ. They were acting like the man who says, I love my wife. I love my wife more than life itself.

I love my wife. I’d give my life to her and is out at the bars flirting with every woman that moves. They were doing the spiritual equivalent of that.

They were professing devotion to Christ, but they were tempted to run off after these pagan rituals. And Paul made it clear they had to choose. They had to choose.

The Lord’s Supper represents our covenant relationship with Jesus, as we see in verses 16 and 17. He says in verse 16, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? Now this cup that we drink, that they drink and that we still drink, it represents the blood of Jesus.

And when we drink from that cup, we are engaging with a powerful symbol that reflects an even more powerful spiritual reality. We are expressing oneness. We are expressing our fellowship with Jesus Christ by drinking from that cup.

Because it represents the blood that He shed for us. He said, the bread which we break, in verse 16, the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? The same reality is present in the bread.

It represents the body of Jesus Christ that was offered on the cross for us. And we are showing a picture of our fellowship with Him. It’s a picture of our devotion to Him and our loyalty to Him on top of everything else that it means.

Now, I want to be very clear. These elements are not the literal body and blood of Jesus. I don’t believe they become the literal body and blood of Jesus.

And I don’t believe that the Bible teaches that taking them, that eating the bread or drinking the wine or the juice, I don’t believe that it brings us into a relationship with Him. But we need to understand that there is more to what we’re doing than just the physical act of eating and drinking. There’s something more to what we’re going to hold in our hands than just juice and bread.

And the importance of it is the reality it represents. The spiritual reality of our union, our oneness, our fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are a believer, if you have trusted Him as your Savior, there is a bond that you have with your Savior that this represents. And that bond is there not because of any good you’ve done.

It’s not there because of anything you’ve earned. It’s there because of the things that it represents. It’s there because His body was offered for us on the cross.

It’s because His blood was shed for us on the cross as the one and only acceptable payment for our sins so that you and I could be forgiven. And so he says in verse 17, for we though many are one bread and one body, for we all partake of that one bread. When we take this Lord’s Supper together, it’s a reflection of our oneness with Him, our fellowship with Him, and with one another through Him.

There’s a bond between us as well because of Jesus Christ. There’s a lot of people in this room. There’s a lot of different people in this room. We’re all different.

No two of us are alike. And some of us may not have a lot in common with some others of us. but we have Jesus.

And that’s an incredible bond that brings us together. And so when we partake of this, particularly when we do it together, we are reflecting an incredible spiritual reality that Jesus Christ has paid for our sins and that he’s brought us into fellowship with him and with each other through him. This was important for them to understand because they were looking at religious rituals as just something you did.

But Paul says what we do outwardly in times of worship reflects what we worship on the inside. And he makes the case, I think this is key to understanding what he was telling them, he makes the case in verses 21 and 22 that we cannot proclaim our devotion to Jesus Christ. We cannot proclaim our loyalty to Jesus Christ while expecting him to share it with the rest of the world. To say, Jesus has my devotion, but other stuff has my devotion too.

If I were to tell my wife, I love you, and I love all these other women just a little less than How is that going to go over? Some of you all don’t know my wife real well, but I think I might have lodge embossed on my forehead. You know the cast iron skillet?

No, probably not. But I might be sleeping on the lawn. And rightly so.

Because that’s not how that works. He says in verse 21, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord’s table and the table of demons.

Now, is he saying you cannot as though it’s impossible? No, because some of them were. Some of them were showing up at the temple of Zeus one day and then showing up for the Lord’s Supper another day.

They were doing it. He’s not saying it’s impossible. He’s saying you can’t be truthful and consistent in doing it.

You can’t do this. You are wrong to do this is what he’s saying. It’s possible to proclaim loyalty to Jesus, just like it’s possible to proclaim loyalty to your wife all while betraying that loyalty.

But you can’t be telling the truth and do it. You can’t actually be loyal to Jesus and to the world. He says in verse 22, Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?

Are we stronger than He? By trying to make Him share us, we provoke the Lord to jealousy. He’s not willing to share us with the world.

He’s not willing to share us with anything. And I know sometimes people will question, well, how can God be jealous? Isn’t jealousy a sin?

Not when you’re God and you deserve the worship, all right? You don’t have to like that He’s jealous, but He says He is, so you have to accept it. God is not willing to settle for half of our devotion.

He’s not willing to settle for 99% of our devotion. He wants us to come to Him fully committed. I know that you and I are human.

We’re imperfect, and we’re always going to feel that backwards tug for the rest of our natural lives. We’re going to feel that tug back towards sin, and that’s why we confess it to Him, and we deal with Him, and we stay in a constant fellowship with Him, rather than just giving in to it and wallowing in it. But at the point where we say, I’m 99% committed to Jesus, and I’m okay with that, that’s where it becomes a problem.

Because if we’re not worshiping Jesus alone, we’re not really worshiping Jesus at all. And so you and I, as we come to the Lord’s table this morning, just like the Corinthians, we need to consider whether our loyalties are divided. and I’m not saying any of this to you this morning because I this is not me calling anybody out because I know what you do I don’t know anything I know nothing except Christ crucified you can ask my wife we can have conversations about things I still don’t know what we talked about right so if you’ve done something I’m not calling you out because I don’t know but we’re human and because we have this constant tug of war in us we have to ask ourselves whether our loyalties are divided are Are we fully committed to Jesus Christ as believers?

Or are we thinking it’s okay to give part of our devotion to the world and then proclaim our loyalty to Jesus Christ? The Corinthians needed to answer this question, especially as they were coming to the Lord’s table. And so do we.

Does the pattern of our lives show genuine devotion to Jesus? Or does it show that we’re trying to conform to the ways of the world? And I want to be very clear as we come to a close this morning, this is not a way of salvation.

This is not a message to tell you that if you want a relationship with God, if you want forgiveness, if you want eternal life, if you want a place in heaven, just be more committed to Jesus. That’s not what this is about. Because we can never be committed enough to Jesus.

That’s why He had to die for us. That’s why He had to pay for our sins. Because we couldn’t do a thing to fix it.

The whole point about being committed to Jesus is once you’re a believer, that this morning if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, It is as simple. It really is simple. It is as simple as understanding that you’ve sinned against God.

Just like everybody else in this room. We have all sinned against God. Our sin separates us from Him because He is completely holy.

And that you and I, on our own, we have no way and no hope of being right with God. We have no hope of being forgiven. We have no hope of life eternal in heaven.

All we have to look forward to is separation from God. but for the fact that Jesus Christ came and took responsibility for our sins. And His body was nailed to the cross like the bread we’re about to break.

And His blood was poured out like the grape juice we’re about to drink. He took the punishment we deserved so that we could be forgiven. And now He tells us all we have to do is believe.

We have to trust Him. Not just believe that He exists, but believe that He died to pay for our sins. That He’s the only one who can do it.

And that He rose from the dead three days later.