Tawa Baptist

Thin Ice

Scripture: 1st Corinthians 10:1-13

Video Link: https://youtu.be/G0sJ4VhYD2Q

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The danger of privilege (1-5)
  • The danger of presumption (6-11)
  • The deliverance of God (12-13)
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

The expression, “You’re on thin ice”, is a warning that you are in danger. You are venturing into an area that is life threatening or detrimental to your wellbeing.

The literal meaning of being on thin ice is skating or walking on a frozen lake where the ice could give away under your weight at any moment, probably resulting in a painful death.

Figuratively, a teacher might say to a student who is always late or rude, “You’re on thin ice Mr”. Or your mum might say it when you are testing the limits of her patience. Or you might be on thin ice with your landlord if you miss a rent payment.

Other expressions which mean the same thing as being on thin ice include…

“You’re playing with fire”, or “You’re on shaky ground”, or “You’re dancing with the devil”.

The thing about thin ice is that you know you should get off it as quickly as possible, but there’s something in you (is it curiosity?) that just wants to test how far you can go. Either that, or you are completely unaware of where you are standing.        

Today, after Ascension Sunday, Pentecost Sunday and Trinity Sunday, we return to our series on First Corinthians chapters 8 to 10, where Paul writes about Christian freedom.

Freedom needs to be tempered with self-control. Too much freedom is a dangerous thing. Indeed, unbridled freedom will put you on thin ice. From First Corinthians 10, verses 1-13, we read…      

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. 6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. 11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptationhas overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be temptedbeyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

To refresh your memory, First Corinthians is one of the letters the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, during the first century. The believers in Corinth had sent their own letter to Paul with some questions and concerns. Paul wrote back to gently pull them out of the rabbit holes they were going down. 

Some of the believers in the Corinthian church were over-confident in their new found freedom in Christ. They felt at liberty to join in the feasts held in the pagan temples that peppered the city they lived in.

But Paul tells them, no. This is not a right use of your freedom as followers of Jesus. Eating meat in places of pagan worship puts you on thin ice with God. 

Three handles to give us a grip on this morning’s reading from Corinthians 10. First, Paul warns against the danger of privilege and the danger of presumption. Then he reminds us of the deliverance of God.

The privileges we enjoy as followers of Jesus do not make us immune from evil. Nor should we presume upon the grace of God, seeing how far we can push it. The Lord won’t tolerate sin indefinitely.

It’s not all danger and thin ice though. The Lord is faithful; we can rely on him to provide a way out of temptation, so long as we are not looking for a way into temptation. Our first point though is the danger of privilege…

The danger of privilege:

In Roald Dahl’s book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, five children win a golden ticket to meet Willy Wonka and see inside his factory. It is a real privilege to see the secrets of Mr Wonka’s chocolate making.

But this privilege is not without its dangers. Winning a golden ticket comes with all sorts of temptations. One by one, each of the children acted against Willy Wonka’s instructions and disqualified themselves for the prize.

Holding a golden ticket got the children into the chocolate factory, but it did not give them a right to do whatever they wanted once inside. Far from giving them license, the privilege of holding a golden ticket actually required the children to act responsibly and with self-control.

Special privileges can deceive us. They can lull us into a false sense of security and make us over-confident; feeling like we have a license to walk on thin ice and get away with it. Privilege does not make you special or immune from danger. Privilege is like a hand grenade; it needs to be treated with great care.

In verses 1-3 of Corinthians 10, Paul draws an analogy between the Israelites of Moses’ time and the Corinthian believers.

When God redeemed the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, they went through a baptism of sorts. Passing through the Red Sea and following the cloud of God’s presence, was a type of baptism which prefigured the water baptism the Corinthians had received on becoming followers of Jesus.

Likewise, the people of Israel received a type of communion in the wilderness. God provided manna for them to eat and water from a rock. This food and drink was spiritual. It nourished their bodies and their relationship with God.

In a very real sense, the supernatural provision of manna and water prefigured holy communion, which the Corinthians partook of regularly.

Being redeemed from slavery, sin and death is a privilege. Baptism and communion are a privilege. But these privileges don’t give us a right to behave however we like. With great privilege comes great responsibility.

Despite their privileged position, God was not pleased with most of the Israelites of Moses’ day, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

Some of the Corinthian believers had way too much confidence. They figured, we’ve been baptised and redeemed. We participate in the Lord’s supper, so we’re all good. We can eat meat sacrificed to idols in pagan temples, no problem. The devil can’t touch us.  

But the privileges of baptism and communion do not make us immune from evil, any more than holding a golden ticket kept the children out of trouble in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

If you walk on thin ice, you risk falling through, whether you’ve been baptised or not. If you participate in pagan rituals, you open your spirit up to a whole world of evil, whether you take communion or not.  

Paul’s message to the Corinthians is this: don’t be like the Israelites. Don’t be deceived by your privilege. Don’t walk on thin ice.

Paul does something quite interesting in these verses, which is easy to miss. The Corinthians were mostly gentiles and yet, in verse 1, Paul talks about the Israelites being our ancestors. The Corinthians were not genetically related to the Israelites, like Paul was. But in a spiritual sense they were related.

If you are in Christ, there is a continuity between you and the people of God in the Old Testament. The stories of the exodus and the exile are our stories too. We, who belong to Jesus, whakapapa back to Abraham, through Christ.

That is a unique privilege, which comes with great responsibility.

The responsibility to learn from Israel’s mistakes. As Paul writes in verse 6: these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.       

One of the dangers of privilege is that we can get so accustomed to it that we forget we are in fact privileged. We can start to view our privilege as an entitlement; something we are owed. Privilege can lead to presumption.

The danger of presumption:

Presumption is behaviour which is arrogant and disrespectful. To act in a presumptuous way is to take liberties and go beyond the bounds of what is considered appropriate.

If you are in a restaurant and someone you don’t know sits down at your table and starts eating food off your plate, then that is presumptuous. It’s not presumptuous, by the way, if your husband or wife eats food off your plate. That is simply marriage.

Or if you are pregnant and a complete stranger walks up to you in the supermarket and puts their hand on your belly, that is presumptuous.

Or if someone parks their car in an accessible carpark, without a permit, that also is presumptuous.

You may have heard of the term ‘diplomatic immunity’. Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law where foreign diplomats and officials are protected from the criminal justice system of the host country. So, if a diplomat commits a criminal offence, they cannot be arrested or sent to jail.

Even though diplomats have this special privilege, most would not be presumptuous enough to shop lift or punch someone in the face or eat chips off your plate.

In fact, in cases where a serious crime is committed, like murder, the sending country may well choose to waive diplomatic immunity and grant the host country the right to press criminal charges against their own official.

In other words, the ice of diplomatic immunity wears thin in some cases and cannot always be relied upon to save the foreign official if they act really badly.

As believers, we are sort of like diplomats from a foreign country. This world is not our home, but we still have a responsibility to behave ourselves.

We must not presume upon the grace of God, seeing how far we can push it, as the Israelites did in the wilderness. The Lord won’t tolerate that for long.  

In verses 7-10, Paul briefly touches on four occasions when the Israelites of old found themselves on thin ice and fell through. Paul highlights the Israelites’ sins of idolatry, sexual immorality, testing the Lord and grumbling.

Idolatry is the worship of idols; basically, the worship of anything that is not God. As I said earlier, some of the Corinthians presumed it was okay to participate in the feasts held at the local pagan temples. But these dinner parties were essentially idolatrous.    

Even if the Corinthians themselves did not believe in idols, they were on thin ice by eating in the idol’s temple. Idolatry in the ancient world inevitably led to revelry. Drunken carousing and loose partying, the kind that uni students during O week might indulge in. Revelry of this sort often leads to fornication.   

In verse 8, Paul warns against sexual immorality. This seems to be a reference to the time when Israelite men indulged in casual sex with strangers; Moabite women who had invited them to pagan worship. Thousands died as a warning.

Sexual immorality was a problem in Corinth too, just as it is a problem in our society today. You may have heard on the news recently how girls as young as 10 are being used as prostitutes. If we who are used to evil are outraged by that kind of exploitation, how much more is God’s holy wrath provoked.

Verse 9 says, we should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes.[1] ‘Testing God’ means trying to prove God wrong, trying to make his word fail, rather than trusting him.

When Satan quoted Scripture, tempting Jesus to jump off the highest point of the temple, the evil one was trying to prove God’s word wrong.

Jesus responded by saying, “Don’t put the Lord your God to the test”.

In other words, don’t presume upon God’s grace. Don’t see how far you can push the boundaries and get away with it.

Putting God to the test is the opposite of trusting God. It puts us on thin ice, where we end up learning the hard way.

Interestingly, Paul says we should not test Christ. Paul gives Jesus the same standing as God. By hanging out in pagan temples, the Corinthians were presuming upon Jesus’ grace.

Now at this point, some of you might be thinking, I don’t bow down to idols or have casual sex with randoms or otherwise test Jesus. I’m not presumptuous like those haughty Corinthians. I’m humble. Today’s sermon is not for me.

Hmm. If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!

The fourth presumption Paul lists is that of grumbling. Some of the Israelites in the wilderness grumbled against Moses, just as some of the believers in Corinth were grumbling against Paul, which is probably why Paul mentions it.     

Grumbling? Is that a sin? Really? Apparently it is. Stink. Just when I thought I was in the clear I find out grumbling is not allowed. Many of us are guilty of grumbling. In fact, kiwis are quite good at grumbling. We call it, ‘tall poppy syndrome’. Cutting others down with our words and criticisms.

Grumbling may be more socially acceptable, but it’s still a presumption. Grumbling reflects an attitude of arrogance and entitlement. When we grumble, we put ourselves on thin ice. Secure people, people with their feet on solid ground, build others up.

We’ve talked about the danger of privilege and the danger of presumption. Now let’s consider the deliverance of God.

The deliverance of God:

Sometimes we can find ourselves on thin ice through no fault of own, simply because the ice is melting and we are in the wrong place at the wrong time.  

God is ready to deliver us in situations like that.

In verse 13 Paul addresses the issue of temptation and how God delivers us from it. We will break it down because there’s quite a bit going on in this verse.

Firstly, Paul writes: No temptationhas overtaken you except what is common to mankind.

Now when we hear the word temptation we are probably inclined to imagine a little devil enticing us to do bad things so that we fall through the ice.

But in this context, temptation is more like a test designed to make us stronger, rather than a torture designed to break us.

Running a marathon is a test of your endurance. The temptation is to give up before you reach the end. But if you do make it all the way, without giving up, you are stronger for it.

Likewise, writing an essay or sitting an exam is a test of your mastery of the subject. The essay or exam is not designed to break you or make you fail.

Its purpose is to help you learn and strengthen your mental proficiency. 

Getting a license to drive involves a series of tests. Acquiring the skill and experience necessary to pass these tests makes you a better, safer driver.  

Temptation in the sense of testing is not bad or evil. It is necessary and inevitable if we are to grow and develop and become better human beings.

Being baptised and receiving communion does not make you immune from temptation. Everyone faces testing in this life. It is common to humankind.

Therefore, we should not be surprised by temptation. We should prepare for it, like we would prepare for a marathon or an exam or a driving test. 

The second thing Paul says in verse 13 is that God is faithful; he will not let you be temptedbeyond what you can bear. 

Note here that God is not the one who brings the temptation, but he does allow it, within certain limits. God is good. He knows our limits and cares for our wellbeing. (Not that it always feels like that to us.)

Sometimes it feels like God takes us beyond our limits. We might think we can only run half a spiritual marathon, when in fact God knows we can go twice that distance. Just as we can be overconfident at times, so too we can underestimate ourselves in other situations. The testing of temptation shows us the truth about ourselves.   

Paul reassures his readers saying, …when you are tempted, God will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

The original Greek word translated as ‘a way out’ (in verse 13) imagines an army platoon trapped in the mountains, escaping a seemingly impossible situation through a pass. [2] 

Very seldom is God’s deliverance as easy as Star Trek, where Captain Kirk says, ‘Beam me up Scotty’. God’s deliverance, his way out, usually requires us to show some character and make a conscious choice.

When Joseph was tempted to sleep with Potiphar’s wife, Joseph avoided her, even running out of the room when she got him alone. God’s way out for Joseph was the indignity of being falsely accused and sent to prison, where Potiphar’s wife could not get to him.

Eventually though, that prison became God’s means of elevating Joseph to Prime Minister of Egypt. God is faithful.

Conclusion:

Not many of us are as good as Joseph. A lot of us (given the opportunity) might prove to be more like David and Bathsheba.

At some point we all find ourselves on thin ice, whether by accident or our own deliberate fault. If we do fall, then we need not despair.

God has provided for our rescue through Jesus. Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Jesus resisted every temptation and test thrown at him, overcoming sin on our behalf. Jesus is our righteousness.

When we do fall, we are honest about that with God. We own it. We don’t try to justify ourselves. We seek his forgiveness and we ask the Lord to restore us; to put our feet on the right path, the firm foundation of Christ our rock.

Let us pray…      

Gracious God, keep us off thin ice. Lead us in the way everlasting, for your name’s sake. Through Jesus we pray. Amen. 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. Have you ever found yourself on thin ice, either literally or figuratively? What happened? How did you get there? What (or who) saved you?
  3. What are the dangers of privilege? How might we enjoy our privilege (freedom) without being deceived by it? 
  4. Why do we get baptised and receive communion? What purpose do these rituals serve? What are baptism and communion not to be used for?  
  5. Discuss / reflect on the four sins (or presumptions) Paul lists in verses 7-10; idolatry, sexual immorality, testing Christ and grumbling. In what ways are these sins expressed in our society today? How might we keep ourselves from these temptations.
  6. What is meant by ‘temptation’, in the context of verse 13? What is the purpose of temptation? Can you think of a time when you felt sorely tested? What happened? How did God provide a way out?
  7. How might we prepare for temptation? What rhythms and routines improve your spiritual fitness?
  8. Take some time this week to confess and repent of anything you know that is putting you on thin ice with God.

[1] Refer Numbers 21:4-9

[2] Refer Leon Morris’ commentary on 1 Corinthians, page 144.

Tawa Baptist

Informed by Love

Scripture: 1st Corinthians 8:1-13

Video Link: https://youtu.be/r5yAZXm_xNQ

Audio Link: https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/sermon-4-may-2025-informed-by-love

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Love informs knowledge (vv.1-3)
  • God is one (vv. 4-6)
  • Love restrains freedom (vv. 7-13)
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Imagine for a moment that you have a superpower. Maybe super strength or the ability to fly or perhaps move objects with your mind or make yourself invisible. What if you could heal people just by touching them? Or discern what people were really thinking. 

The examples I’ve given are a bit far-fetched. They sound like something out of a Marvel movie, but power comes in more subtle forms too. Things like, inside knowledge, privileged position, money, creative ability and freedom; these are all examples of more commonplace powers we might take for granted.  

Whatever form it might take though, power makes us more vulnerable to temptation and more likely to cause harm. How do we use our power? Do we use it to help others, or do we use it to take advantage?

Today we start a new sermon series in First Corinthains. We are not planning to work through the whole letter, just one section (chapters 8, 9 and 10) where the apostle Paul addresses the question of freedom. How are Christians to use their special power of freedom? From 1st Corinthians chapter 8, verses 1-13 we read…   

Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God. 4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. 7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. 9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Have you ever walked in, midway, through someone else’s conversation and felt a bit lost, trying to pick up the thread of what they are saying, not sure of what you have missed? Reading Paul’s letters to the Corinthians can feel like that sometimes.

The experts tell us Paul probably wrote at least four letters to the church in Corinth, but only two of his letters survived. To make matters more complicated, the Corinthian believers also wrote some letters to Paul, seeking clarification on a few issues. But the content of their letters is lost to history.

The result is that we, today, are left trying to put the pieces of the puzzle back together. Apparently, 1st Corinthians is Paul’s response to one of the letters the Corinthians had written to him.

One of their questions had to do with eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Is this okay or not? Eating idol meat might not seem like a hot button topic for us today in New Zealand, but it was a big deal in the first century.

Whether the question of eating meat sacrificed to idols seems relevant to us or not, the principles embedded in Paul’s response are still very pertinent for the church in the 21st Century.    

Three timeless principles woven through today’s Scripture reading:

Love informs knowledge, God is one and love restrains freedom.

Let us begin with love and knowledge. What do we mean when we say love informs knowledge?   

Love informs knowledge:

Well, basically this: True knowledge is not about accumulating a stack of information in your head. (We have the internet for that.) Nor is knowledge about having lots of degrees and qualifications.

True knowledge is relational. True knowledge (what we might call intimacy) comes with the experience of giving and receiving love over time.   

I didn’t get to know Robyn by taking a class (although there may have been times when she wished I had taken classes). There were no lectures or tests (at least not the kind NZQA would recognize), but there was a lot of listening and work and laughter (mainly Robyn laughing at me).

As someone said to us on our wedding day. Marriage is an education in which you lose your bachelor’s and never really gain your masters.  

Seriously though, Robyn and I have grown in our knowledge and appreciation of each other through more than three decades of marriage, with all the joys and difficulties and humdrum in between that living and working and raising kids together entails.

The first thing we notice about Paul’s response to the Corinthians’ question is the way he models the principle of love informing knowledge. Paul could have simply said, ‘No. Eating meat sacrificed to idols is wrong. Don’t do it. It’s my way or the highway’. End of conversation. But Paul takes a different approach.

You don’t deal with weeds by cutting off the tops and leaving the root in the ground. A more effective way of dealing with weeds is to pull the whole weed out, root and all. And it’s normally easier to pull weeds out if you soften the ground first with some water.

Paul persuades his readers by addressing the root of the problem. But first he waters the ground. He softens people’s hearts in a gentle way.

To be clear, the Corinthians are not the weeds here. The Corinthians are people that Paul cares about deeply. Unfortunately, some of their ideas were like weeds that needed to be removed and replaced with a more fruitful thought.

The surface question might be, ‘Is it okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols?’

But the deeper (root) question is, ‘Do you love God and your brothers and sisters in Christ?’

You see, the Corinthians believed that being spiritual had to do with possessing special knowledge. In their minds, having the right knowledge gives you a kind of superpower that makes you more ‘spiritual’ than others.        

But Paul helps the Corinthians (and us) to see that this is not what Christian spirituality looks like at all. For Christians, knowledge is informed by love.

Being spiritual is not about having the right answers or insights. Being spiritual is about giving and receiving love.

Indeed, Christian spirituality is about loving God and loving your neighbour as yourself.   

Paul agrees with the Corinthians’ statement that, “We all possess knowledge”. However, he qualifies their statement saying, “But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know.”

Or, as J.B. Phillips puts it: “While knowledge may make a person look big, it is only love that can make them grow to their full stature. For whatever a person may know, they still have a lot to learn.”      

In other words, knowledge doesn’t make you spiritual. Knowledge makes you arrogant. It inflates your ego, so you think you are better than other people. Love grows you spiritually.

In verse 3, Paul uproots the Corinthians’ false thinking: But whoever loves God is known by God.

Life is connection with God (intimacy with him). To be known by God is to be recognized by God as having a relationship with him. We gain true spiritual knowledge by being in a loving relationship with God. A relationship in which we receive love from God and learn to trust and obey him as well.

Love informs knowledge. If knowledge is divorced from love, then it becomes a destructive power. That’s Paul’s first principle. His next principle is that God is one. Or said another way, there is only one true God.

God is one:

Some people will not open an umbrella inside because they believe it brings bad luck. According to one theory this superstition comes from ancient Egypt where noblemen used umbrellas to shade themselves from the sun. To open an umbrella inside was considered offensive to the sun god.

These days we avoid opening umbrellas inside because we don’t want to knock anything over or poke anyone in the eye. It has nothing to do with any sun god.

In medieval times people associated black cats with the devil and witches and the plague. Consequently, for some, having a black cat cross your path is an evil omen. But really there is no scientific basis for being fearful of black cats, unless you are a mouse or a bird or a saucer of milk.

What about throwing salt over your left shoulder? Well, apparently this is to cleanse yourself of the little devil which sits on your left shoulder whispering things into your ear.

In my experience there is more than one little devil and they tend to attach themselves to memories. They don’t sit on my shoulder; there’s not enough room for them all. What’s the point in throwing salt over my shoulder? Not only is it a waste of good salt, it also means I have to vacuum more often, which is bad for my back.   

The city of Corinth, in the first century, was a very superstitious place. There were pagan idols everywhere you went. Trying not to offend any of the gods and trying to appease them if you did cause offense, was exhausting. 

One of the attractions of converting from pagan worship to Christianity is that with Jesus there is just one God. It’s a lot easier to serve one master, than many at the same time. Knowing there is only one God and he loves you, sets you free from a lot of unnecessary fear and superstition.

Knowing there is only one God also gives you a kind of superpower in a society that believes in many gods. And, as I said at the beginning of this message, having a superpower can be a dangerous thing.

Some of the Corinthian Christians were misusing their knowledge to justify some sketchy behaviour. They reasoned that because there is only one true God, then the so-called gods which the idols of wood and stone represent, don’t really exist. Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Aphrodite and so on are nothing.

And if the idols are nothing, if they are not real, then they have no power. Therefore, eating meat that has been sacrificed to idols cannot hurt you.

Just like opening an umbrella inside your house is not going to offend the sun god and bring you bad luck because there is no sun god.

Again, Paul is gentle in weeding out the Corinthians’ self-serving thinking.

Paul agrees wholeheartedly that there is only one true God and all the idols are nothing. But he does qualify this somewhat by acknowledging the dual reality.

Objectively speaking there is only one God but existentially speaking (in the felt experience of most Corinthian citizens) there are many gods and many lords. Those gods and lords (false though they be) are still real enough in the minds of the pagan majority.

Later, in chapter 10, Paul goes on to clarify: “…the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons”.

In verse 6 Paul gives a wonderfully rich and valuable theological statement which has stood the test of time down through the centuries…

…yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.          

There’s a lot going on here, so let me give you the skinny version. Paul is affirming that there is only one God. God is the creator and Jesus is the one through whom God created all things. Caesar is not lord, as the cult of emperor worship believed. Jesus is Lord and he is one with God.  

More than this, the one true God is our Father. To describe God as our Father indicates a close and caring relationship with God. The Christian God is not like the pagan gods who don’t care about humanity. Our God is invested in his creation like a good Father is invested in his children. 

Building on this idea of God being a Father, we look to God just as a child looks to their parents to know things. We know who we are and why we are and what to do by looking to God our Father. God gives us our identity, our purpose and the right path through life.  

We don’t look to blind superstition to guide our behaviour, like the pagans do. Nor do we manipulate knowledge to justify our own bad behaviour, like some of the ‘knowledgeable’ Corinthians were doing. No. We take our lead from God’s love for us.     

We are talking about the responsible exercise of knowledge and freedom.

Love informs knowledge and love restrains freedom. Wait, did he just say, ‘love restrains freedom’? That can’t be right, can it? Isn’t love supposed to let me do what I want? No. True love knows when to exercise restraint.  

Love restrains freedom:

Now the kind of love in view here is not a fluctuating feeling. Rather, it is a settled commitment to the wellbeing of others, irrespective of how they make us feel. It is agape love, self-giving love. The kind of love modelled by Jesus.

Jesus didn’t need to go to the cross, at least not for himself. He was free to walk away, but he chose to restrain his freedom out of love for God and love for us. ‘Not my will Father, but your will be done’.

We drive north to see family in Hamilton and Tauranga every three months or so. It normally takes us about seven hours depending on road works and traffic. Our is not new or fast or powerful, but it is reliable; it gets the job done without costing too much.  

Most drivers are patient and show consideration on the road. But every now and then you come across someone who takes a crazy risk. Best to give them room and pray they don’t cause an accident.

People like that may know how to drive and they may own a fast and powerful car, but that doesn’t entitle them to pass at speed by crossing a yellow line on a blind corner. That kind of behaviour is not loving. It puts personal freedom ahead of the wellbeing of others.

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Seeking the wellbeing of others sometimes requires us to limit our power and restrain our freedom.

In verse 7 Paul says that not everyone possesses the knowledge that there is only one God and idols are nothing. As believers in Christ, they may know in their head that God is one, but this knowledge hasn’t properly connected with their heart yet. It’s not part of their felt experience.

After years of bowing and scraping to idols in fear and superstition, they still feel like the pagan gods are real and could do them harm. What if eating the idol’s meat contaminates them in some way? What if eating in a pagan temple without worshipping the pagan gods makes the gods angry?    

Those believers who felt free to eat sacrificial meat thought their faith was stronger or more mature. They were looking down on other believers who had a sensitive conscience and were more selective with their eating.

So, in verse 8 Paul says: food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

In other words, eating meat sacrificed to idols does not prove that your faith is stronger. It doesn’t make you more ‘spiritual’. In fact, God is not that concerned with what goes into your stomach. The Lord is more concerned with how you treat others, especially those you might think are weaker than you.

Paul’s line of reasoning here follows Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 15 where the Lord says, 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

In verse 9 Paul gets to the crux of the matter saying: Be careful that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.

Have some consideration for the wellbeing of other believers, for whom Christ died. Just because you feel free to eat meat doesn’t mean you should. Be ready to limit your own personal freedom for the sake of others.

If someone feels morally uncomfortable eating meat or drinking alcohol or watching a particular movie or laughing at your dodgy jokes or whatever, then don’t pressure them.

Don’t goad them into following your example, by making them feel they are somehow inadequate if they don’t do as you do. Let others feel comfortable in their own skin. Let their faith grow and take shape as the Holy Spirit directs.   

In verse 12, Paul joins the dots for the Corinthians (and us) saying: When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.

Again, we are reminded of the words of Jesus who said: Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

To sin against another believer is to sin against Christ. To love another believer is to love Christ and to love Christ is to love God. Paul would rather give up meat altogether than cause a fellow believer to fall and lose faith. Love informs knowledge and love restrains freedom.

Conclusion:

What is the takeaway here? (Please excuse the pun.) Well, one person’s meat is another person’s poison. What you have no problem with may be quite harmful to someone else.

We need to be conscious of the power of our words and actions and how these affect others. In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty. In all things let love be your guide.  

Let us pray…

Father God, you are one and you care for all people, weak and strong. Forgive us for the times we have wounded others’ faith and conscience. May your love inform our knowledge and restrain our freedom, through Jesus we pray. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. If you could choose a superpower, what would it be (and why)? What more subtle powers do you already possess? How do you use your power?
  3. What is the purpose of knowledge? Why does love need to inform knowledge?
  4. What does it mean (for Christians) to be spiritual? What does it mean to be known by God?
  5. Do you have any superstitions? If so, what are they and where do they come from?
  6. Discuss / reflect on 1st Corinthians 8, verse 6: Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. What are the implications of this statement?         
  7. Why is it important to restrain freedom? How do we know when to restrain our freedom?
Tawa Baptist

Responsibility

Scripture: Proverbs 6:1-11

Video Link: https://youtu.be/-TP-QDgpdto

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Guard your authority
  • Take responsibility for yourself
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

In a moment I’m going to list some words and as I do, listen carefully and see if you can pick up the common thread: Kiwi, Kākāpō, Morepork, Fantail, Tui and Black Robin. What is the common thread with these? [Wait]

That’s right, they are all native birds of New Zealand. 

Today we continue our series in the Old Testament book of Proverbs. Proverbs offers practical wisdom for living. It gives handy life hacks for people starting out in the world. 

Often when we read Proverbs it seems like a random collection of unrelated sayings. And sometimes that’s because it is. Other times though it’s possible to find a common thread.

A couple of weeks’ ago we heard about the importance of guarding your heart. This morning we look at Proverbs chapter 6. If we were to read the whole chapter, we would notice one of the common threads tying Proverbs 6 together is responsibility.  

Most of Proverbs 6 deals with our responsibility to God and our neighbour, but the first 11 verses (the focus of our message today) is primarily concerned with personal responsibility. That is, our responsibility to and for ourselves. From Proverbs 6, verse 1, we read…

My son, if you have put up security for your neighbour, if you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger, 2 you have been trapped by what you said, ensnared by the words of your mouth. 3 So do this, my son, to free yourself, since you have fallen into your neighbour’s hands: Go—to the point of exhaustion—and give your neighbour no rest! 4 Allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. 5 Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler. 6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! 7 It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, 8 yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. 9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—11 and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the common threads with this reading is the idea of responsibility, in particular personal responsibility. For responsibility to be life giving though, it must always go together with authority.

Being responsible means you are the one who will be held accountable for the outcome. While authority means having the resources and decision making control you need to get the job done and achieve the outcome.  

Responsibility plus authority equals freedom.

Conversely, responsibility minus authority equals captivity.

To make someone responsible for something but then take away their authority to act, is unfair. It puts that’s person in a difficult position.

Responsibility without authority is like saying, you must cook a meal to feed your family but I’m tying your hands behind your back first. Or, you must build a house to provide shelter but I’m taking away your land and your tools.

In order to maintain our freedom, we must keep responsibility and authority together; we must guard our authority and not give it away thoughtlessly.

Guard your authority:

In verses 1-5 of Proverbs 6, the teacher gives a real life example of what separating responsibility from authority looks like; putting up security for your neighbour.

This scenario imagines someone, you might not know all that well, asking you to act as guarantor for a loan. Maybe they need some cash for a business venture. They come to you and say, “I’ve got a proposition for you. Act as guarantor on my loan so I can buy this field. I’ll flip it for a quick profit and give you a cut.”

Whatever the reason, they want to borrow money from someone else and they ask you to pledge your tractor or your house or something of value you possess as collateral against the loan.

If you agree to do this, then you are making yourself responsible for their debt and you are giving away your authority. You cannot control whether or not this strange neighbour will repay their debt. Maybe they will and you will be okay, but if they don’t you will lose your tractor and your house and your financial freedom.  In any case, you will lose sleep while you wait to find out.    

Agreeing to help someone in this way might seem like a smart thing to do, but it is foolish because it ties your hands. It puts you in their power.

You may have noticed the word hands is used multiple times in these verses. Quite often in the Bible hands is a poetic way of talking about power. To be in someone else’s hands is to be in their power, to be captive, not free.

If you (in the heat of the moment) rashly say you will cover someone else’s debt, then do everything in your power to get out of the arrangement as soon as possible. Take a lesson from the gazelle and the bird caught in a trap. Free yourself before it is too late. Better to humiliate yourself temporarily than to become a slave permanently. Better still not to get yourself in that position in the first place.

Now, it is important to note that the teacher is not advocating stinginess or meanness toward people in need. Elsewhere, in the law of Moses, God encourages those who can afford it to lend money to the poor and to help those in need.

But lending money to the poor (who may or may not be able to pay you back) is different from mortgaging your land for them. Because when you lend (or give) money to someone, you limit your liability and you guard your authority. You maintain your freedom to be generous in other words.

Acting as guarantor for other people’s debt is not only personally irresponsible, it’s also socially irresponsible. It places a strain on community relationships that the neighbourhood is not strong enough to bear.

As one commentator puts it, the principle of wisdom here is: take responsibility for what is yours and do not take responsibility for what is not. [1]

So how might this apply in our context today?

How many of you here have received a phone call or an email or a text message from a scammer, trying to get access to your bank account details. [Wait] It’s disturbing really. Proverbs 6 is a warning to be alert and not allow yourself to be scammed.

Some people will play on your emotions to get money out of you. They will appeal to your fear, or your ego or your greed. Whatever strategy the scammer uses they are trying to put you in their power by getting you to hand over your authority while making you responsible.     

Keeping responsibility and authority together has a broader application though than not acting as a guarantor and avoiding scammers. Money is not our only resource. For most of us these days, time is a more valuable thing.     

When we over commit ourselves and try to do too much with the limited time and energy available to us, we effectively give away our authority and make ourselves responsible for more than we can handle. We become slaves to an over busy schedule; trapped on a treadmill of never ending activity.   

I imagine most people here don’t need to be told to work harder. More likely you need to become more discerning about what you commit yourself to. That can be difficult. Our need to feel useful, to find meaning, purpose and a sense of belonging often drive us to take on more than we can handle.

One of our church values, here at Tawa Baptist, is freedom to be involved.

‘Freedom to be involved’ means we don’t put pressure on people to do lots of church stuff. We let people become involved in church life at their own pace.

We don’t guilt people into doing things and we don’t load people up with so many church responsibilities that they lose authority (or control) over their lives.

We try to encourage people to maintain a healthy balance, allowing time for family, time for church and time for engagement with the wider world. Hopefully too, time for fun and rest.

The risk with freedom to be involved is that some people might think they have a license to kick back and cruise. To be slack and to take without giving anything back. But that is not a responsible use of freedom.   

Freedom to be involved is about contributing in a way that is life giving for you and the community. We want people to be involved in church life from a place of personal authority and responsibility, because you want to and you can. 

It’s like Jesus said in Matthew 11: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

The wisdom of Jesus does not separate responsibility and authority. The wisdom of Jesus calls us to do what is in our power to do and to trust God for the rest.

Take responsibility for yourself:

Responsibility plus authority equals freedom. If the first five verses of Proverbs 6 talk about the importance of guarding your authority (keeping some control over your life), then the next six verses underline the importance of taking responsibility for yourself. Verses 6-8 tell us to learn from the ant… 

6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! 7 It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, 8 yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

A sluggard is a lazy person, someone who does not take responsibility for themselves. They have authority over themselves but they don’t exercise it in a positive or constructive way.

Ants keep authority and responsibility together. Ants have their own authority. They are not slaves at the mercy of a dictator. Ants have autonomy over themselves, no one tells them what to do. And how do they use their authority? How do they use their freedom? Wisely and responsibly.

Ants work hard, carrying loads much bigger than themselves. But they also work smart. They make hay while the sun shines. They go with the grain of the seasons, putting themselves to work when the environment is most conducive to a good outcome, during the summer harvest, when conditions are right and food is plentiful.

Another wise thing about ants is that they work together. Working on your own (especially doing heavy physical labour) can be quite tough. But when you work as part of a team, there is a certain buoyancy or energy that carries you. Somehow the work doesn’t seem so overwhelming.

But wait, there’s more. Ants are good for the environment too. Ants turn and aerate the soil, allowing water and oxygen to reach plant roots. Ants also help with seed dispersal. In the very act of taking responsibility for themselves, ants make a positive contribution to the environment.

It’s similar with us human beings. Personal responsibility forms the building blocks of social responsibility. As we work to earn a living, taking care of ourselves and our family, we contribute positively to society.    

The ant is a model of setting a goal, making an appropriate commitment in community with others and sticking with it. The ant teaches us to avoid those responsibilities that are not ours so we can be free for those responsibilities that are ours.

Verses 9-11 paint a picture of what not taking responsibility for yourself looks like. The outcome of shirking our responsibility is poverty.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—11 and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.

Notice how scarcity sneaks up and mugs a person. No one really sets out to be poor. Poverty ambushes people, it takes the sluggard by surprise. The point here is that being irresponsible is a lifestyle or a pattern. It’s a bad habit that eventually leads to disaster.

Now, in reading these verses, we need to be very careful. While being slack and not taking responsibility for yourself generally does result in poverty, it does not automatically follow that everyone who is poor is lazy or irresponsible. People can fall on hard times for a whole raft of reasons.

Sometimes people fall into the pit of poverty because they lack discipline and drift aimlessly through life. Other times though people find themselves in the pit of poverty because they have been pushed. There are often systemic reasons why people find themselves trapped in poverty.

You are probably aware of the saying, ‘Give a person a fish and they eat for a day. Teach them to fish and they eat for a lifetime’. That saying is well intentioned but a little naive. It assumes the world is fair, when it is not.

It’s not enough to teach a person to fish. Many of the world’s poor would fish responsibly if they could, but the authority to fish has been taken from them. We address systemic inequalities, we give people authority, by ensuring people have the right fishing equipment and fair access to the fishing pond.

To avoid poverty, we need to keep authority and responsibility together.

Thinking of systemic injustice, which takes away people’s authority and discourages personal responsibility, the ant has more to teach us. In the context of Proverbs 6 at least, the ant gathers its food in season, which is often quite different from the way we gather food.

We live is a consumer oriented culture, one in which we don’t necessarily know what we want but we feel we don’t have it and so we always want more. We are always consuming but never really satisfied.

As a consequence, our society gathers perpetually, with little or no regard for the demand and supply of resources or the needs of others. Affluent ‘out of season’ consumption can drive the price up and make life more difficult for the global poor.    

So how does the advice of Proverbs, to not be lazy but rather store up provisions in season, fit with the teaching of Jesus? After all, didn’t Jesus warn against storing up riches on earth? Didn’t the Lord tell us not to worry about tomorrow because God knows what we need is able to provide?

Yes, Jesus did teach those things.

We need to keep in mind that the wisdom of Proverbs is not complete; it is not whole. Jesus completes the wisdom of Proverbs. He fulfils it. The wisdom of Proverbs is generally intuitive, it’s common sense. Whereas the wisdom of Jesus is often counter intuitive. It’s paradoxical.

Proverbs tells us how to identify and avoid pitfalls in life. Proverbs says, ‘This is what a pit looks like. Stay away from it’. But Jesus does more than that. Jesus looks for pits in order to lift people out of them. Jesus came to redeem and restore and make whole.   

Proverbs builds a fence to protect people. Jesus builds a gate in the fence to connect people and show them the way.   

Jesus brings some much needed perspective to the wisdom of Proverbs. Proverbs is very focused on this life and how to survive in an imperfect world, so much so that it puts us at risk of losing sight of the next life.

Part of Jesus’ message is to remind people that this life is not all there is. What we do in this life has consequences for the next life. The life to come is by far the bigger part. Wisdom dictates that our behaviour in this world needs to be informed by the life to come.

When Jesus said, don’t worry about the food you eat or what tomorrow might bring, he was not encouraging people to be lazy or irresponsible. He was encouraging the work of faith. He was setting people free from unhelpful fear and anxiety. He was broadening people’s horizons, helping the human mind to imagine a different reality, an eternal reality.        

That does not mean we fold our hands and give up our jobs. We still need to work but we do so by the light of eternity, rather than the fear of not having enough. 

The apostle Paul brings the teaching of Jesus and the wisdom of Proverbs together nicely when he says in his letter to the Thessalonians… 

11 make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. 

Conclusion:

We need to keep authority and responsibility together. When we do that we are free. Not free to do whatever we want, but free to love God, love our neighbour and love ourselves.

May the Lord give you grace to walk in freedom and righteousness. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Why is it important to keep responsibility and authority together? What happens if we separate responsibility and authority?
  • Can you think of examples (either from Scripture or your own experience) when authority was separated from responsibility? What happened?
  • How might we guard our personal authority? How might we help others, in a way that respects their freedom and our own?
  • What wisdom (life skills) can we learn from observing the ant?
  • How does the advice of Proverbs 6 fit with the teaching of Jesus? How does Jesus complete (fulfil) the wisdom of Proverbs? 

[1] Paul Koptak, NIVAC Proverbs, page 199.

Tawa Baptist

Balance

Scripture: Psalm 8

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Security
  • Love
  • Responsibility
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Yippee, Wha-hoo, Go you good thing, On ya mate, Well done, Tu Meke, You are awesome, That was amazing

  • These words and phrases are different ways in which we express praise
  • Some of these words and expressions you won’t find in a dictionary but that doesn’t matter – the words themselves are not the main thing
  • It’s more the feeling we give to those words, the positive intention and energy behind them

This morning we take a break from our sermon series in Ephesians to focus on Psalm 8 – a psalm of David

    • In this song David pours out his praise for God’s creative activity – in particular for the security, love and responsibility God gives, which makes our lives functional and meaningful
  • From verse 1 we read…

O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have established, 4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?  5 Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour. 6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, 8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.   9 O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us

[Listen to a recording of children laughing and playing]

Security:

That was a recording of children laughing and playing and having fun

  • Let’s listen to it again
  • [Replay the recording of children laughing and playing]
  • This is what praise sounds like out of the mouth of babes
  • Children make those sorts of happy sounds when they feel safe and secure – security is the foundation really

Psalm 8 begins and ends with the words…

  • O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

In the original – the word LORD (all in capitals) – actually translates as Yahweh

  • Yahweh is God’s personal name
  • It means something like, I am who I am, or I am with you and for you

The LORD is our Sovereign

    • A Sovereign is a King or a Queen – the ruler of the realm
    • God’s name is God’s reputation & integrity; His greatness and goodness
    • David is saying that Yahweh is King of the whole earth – second to none
  • This is basically a statement of adoration and allegiance

One of the main jobs of the King is security – keeping his people safe

  • The subject of security is pretty big in the psalms
  • Whenever you hear a word like ‘strong hold’ or ‘high tower’ or ‘shepherd’ or ‘bulwark’ or similar the psalmist is talking about security
  • Verse 2 reads…

2Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

It’s interesting that Psalm 8 (a hymn of praise) comes after 5 other psalms where David calls out for help and deliverance from his foes

  • David’s praise for the security God gives wasn’t just a theoretical thing
  • David knew God’s security first hand as someone who lived in a dangerous world and had actual enemies who wanted him dead

The praise of children and infants is pure because children possess a certain innocence

  • In Matthew 21, after Jesus had cleared the temple of the merchants, we read how the blind and lame came to Jesus and he healed them
  • Children witnessed this and shouted praise to God because of Jesus, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David”
  • When the religious leaders heard the children’s praise they were indignant, so Jesus quoted this verse from Psalm 8 to them
  • The Pharisees were the foe; they wanted to kill Jesus but the praise of children was Jesus’ defence, his stronghold
  • God silenced the religious leaders, not through brute force
  • Not through an overwhelming demonstration of his power and strength
  • But through the praise of children and infants; through what appears weak and of little account

Just a few days after that the religious leaders conspired to murder Jesus

  • There was no defence for Jesus on Good Friday, but that was God’s plan
  • To defeat strength with weakness
  • Jesus silenced the foe (sin) and the avenger (death) not with overwhelming force – but through his own suffering and humiliation
  • What looked like Christ’s defeat (on the cross) was actually God’s victory

From 1st Corinthians chapter 1 we read…

  • For the message about Christ’s death on the cross is nonsense to those who are being lost; but for us who are being saved it is God’s power…
  • For what seems to be God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and what seems to be God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Now here’s the thing; when what we thought was strong is defeated by what we thought was weak, it has the power to completely change the way we think, so that what we fear most no longer has a hold on us

One of the things children need from parents is security – they need to feel safe

  • Parents give security to children in a number of ways
  • In the first two years of life children learn security by the presence of at least one adult who is consistently there for them to care for their needs
  • In the normal course of events a baby will cry for one of four reasons:
  • Either they are hungry or they have a dirty nappy or wind or they’re tired
  • You take care of those four things in a timely way and they will feel safe and secure and learn trust (as opposed to fear)

As kids gets older they still need to be fed but they also need boundaries to make them feel safe and secure; rules and routines that are kind and fair

  • And if they cross the line then they need to know that it’s not the end of the relationship, that there is a way back
  • For every mistake there is a remedy

God gives us security and we reveal to our children what God is like by giving them security and love

Love:

Some years ago now our family went to Opito Bay in the Coromandel for a summer holiday (Robyn’s aunty & uncle let us stay in their bach up there)

  • I have this enduring memory of lying on the concrete at night, with one of our daughters, looking up at the stars
  • The concrete was still warm, having baked in the sun all day, and the stars were bright because there isn’t much light pollution in Opito Bay
  • The star light we saw may have been billions of years old and who knows, perhaps some of the stars we were looking at had burnt out thousands of years before we were born
  • When you think about the vastness of time and space it makes your problems seem very small; it takes your focus off yourself and puts things in proper perspective
  • The person who looks up to God seldom looks down on other people

In verses 3 & 4 David describes feeling both small and cared for as he gazes up at the stars…

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have established, 4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

This is poetry – it’s not science. We are not to conclude that God literally made the moon and stars with his fingers

  • It’s a metaphor in which God is portrayed as an artist carefully arranging the heavens
  • Fingers are for fine work – they are for taking care of details
  • Fingers are gentle and skilled
  • The fact that God handles the moon and stars with His fingers shows us how big and strong God really is
  • It also speaks of God’s control over the heavenly bodies
  • Our lives are not controlled by the moon and stars or the horoscope
  • God is in control of the constellations, and this should help us to feel secure despite our smallness

The Lord is mindful of us and cares for us

  • When you love someone they populate your every thought (whether that’s your husband or your wife, your son or your daughter, your friend your sister, brother or whoever); you are mindful of them
  • You remember them in your prayers, you remember what they asked you to get at the supermarket, you remember their birthday and you send them text messages when you’re not with them
  • Likewise, when you love someone you care for them – you are affected by what happens to them so that if they cut their finger you feel their pain
  • Care isn’t just a feeling though – care is something practical that we do to help make those we love more comfortable

Children need love – they need people in their lives who are mindful of them and who care for them in practical ways

  • When a child is very young they aren’t able to separate themselves from their mother – they have just spent 9 months in the womb and haven’t developed a sense of their own identity yet
  • This means that they are very sensitive to the way dad treats their mum
  • If dad is kind to mum and treats her with thoughtfulness and care, then they will feel loved by dad
  • But if dad mistreats mum then they will feel hurt and not worth much
  • So the first way for parents to love their children is to love one another

As the child gets older, and is able to differentiate themselves from their mother a bit more, love is given in other ways – mainly through time spent together

  • I don’t remember many of the toys I was given as a child; but I do remember the quality time my parents spent with me
  • We want to give our kids as many good memories as we can

Responsibility:

God provides us with security, God loves us and God trusts us with real responsibility

Some years ago now I read Bill Bryson’s book, ‘A short history of everything’ in which Bryson describes the ‘Goldilocks Effect’

  • The goldilocks effect is a metaphor for how everything is ‘just right’ for sustaining life on earth
  • The earth is just the right distance from the sun, just the right distance from the moon, just the right size and therefore the right gravity
  • With just the right amount of oxygen in our atmosphere, just the right amount of salt in our oceans and so on
  • This planet is held in a wonderfully intricate balance – if any one of thousands of different factors was even a little bit out, planet earth wouldn’t be habitable.
  • Some people say the Goldilocks Effect is just random luck; but there is no hope (or truth) in thinking like that
  • The Bible teaches that God took great care in making this world just right for sustaining life
  • When we think of it like that, we begin to realise there is meaning and purpose to life on earth; our lives are not random, they matter

Not long after I first started at Tawa Baptist I conducted a survey. It was a way of getting to know the congregation

  • One of the questions at the end of the survey had to do with how we contribute to the well-being of others especially in the wider world
  • And I remember R answered in a way that no one else did
  • R said, “I ride my bike to work” and in brackets he wrote ‘pollute-less’
  • R was doing his bit to keep the balance in our world – he was taking care of the environment
  • But I think also that R really likes riding his bike
  • Given R’s love of cycling I had to include a bicycle illustration in the sermon – so please wait for a moment. I’ll be back…

[Go back stage and return with a bicycle]

How long do you think I can keep my balance on this bike? [Wait]

  • Okay, let’s test my balance – let’s see how long I can stay upright

[Try to balance on my bike while not moving]

That wasn’t very long was it. Why couldn’t I keep my balance for more than a few seconds? [Wait]

  • That’s right, because I wasn’t moving. To keep my balance, I need forward momentum, I need positive purpose

Returning to Psalm 8. In verse 5 David talks about the dignity God has given humanity, saying…

5 Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour. 6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, 8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.   

Verses 5-8 of Psalm 8 come from Genesis chapter 1

  • There (in the first chapter of Genesis) it tells how God created order out of the chaos and how God made us human beings in His own image

To be crowned with glory and honour is a privilege

  • To have dominion (or stewardship) over the animals, the birds and the fish, is a responsibility
  • As God’s vice regents, as His representatives, His deputies, it is our job to help maintain the balance

The position we have in creation is a position of trust

  • And it’s not a position or a trust that we have earned – it has simply been given to us
  • God shared his glory & honour with us before we had a chance to do anything at all
  • This means that we did not become the dominant species on planet earth by natural selection
  • Our place in the natural order is not the consequence of survival of the fittest. We have dominion over other creatures by divine selection

This means our royal status and authority over creation is subject to God

  • We don’t have free reign to do whatever we want
  • We are to use our authority and power in ways that serve God’s own purposes and reflect God’s own practices
  • God is mindful of us and cares for us, therefore we need to be mindful of the rest of God’s creation and care for it, both human and non-human
  • We are dependent on God to help us keep the balance – we can’t do it without Him
  • Trying fulfil our responsibility as human beings, without God, is like trying to ride a bike without forward momentum; God gives us the positive purpose we need to stay upright

So how are we doing with our responsibility?

  • Not so great. There is a huge disparity between the vision of humanity in this psalm and the reality of human history
  • Our dominion has become domination
  • Our stewardship has become slavery
  • Our rule has become ruin
  • We have dragged God’s reputation through the mud
  • We have become the foe and the avenger
  • And all creation groans as it waits for its salvation

One of the tasks of parenting is to teach our children responsibility

  • We want our kids to grow up to be responsible adults
  • As human beings, made in the image of God, we have a responsibility to care for our neighbour, to care for the environment and to care for ourselves

Responsibility is like riding a bike – it requires balance

  • If our sense of responsibility is too great, then this creates problems:
  • Like we might feel guilty when we don’t need to
  • Or we might keep coming to the rescue when others don’t need rescuing
  • Or we might feel like we are carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders and life loses its joy
  • Or we find ourselves becoming resentful because we always seem to be the one who does the work while others keep letting us down

On the other hand, if our sense of responsibility is too light or missing altogether, then that creates a different set of problems:

  • Like we make a mess that others have to clean up
  • Or we throw away our plastic so sea birds eat it and die horribly
  • Or we indulge ourselves at the expense of others, causing them trauma and pain

The prodigal son didn’t feel enough responsibility – he was reckless

  • Whereas his older brother carried too much responsibility and he became resentful
  • Responsibility is a balancing act and we teach children to manage the balance by living a balanced lifestyle ourselves
  • By avoiding extremes and excesses
  • Having a time for doing chores, a time for rest and a time for play
  • Having a consequence for misbehaviour that is fair and not too heavy handed
  • By balancing involvement in church with involvement in the community
  • Having time alone and time to socialise
  • Being good to others without neglecting our own needs
  • Being mindful of the products we buy and how we dispose of our waste
  • I could go on but you get the point: being responsible means keeping a healthy balance and the key to keeping our balance is letting God be the boss of our lives because God is the one who gives us the forward momentum of a positive purpose

Conclusion:

While we have failed in our responsibility, Jesus is our Saviour (He has taken responsibility)

    • Jesus is the one who fulfils Psalm 8’s vision of humanity
    • Jesus shows us what God originally intended
    • In Christ we find security.
    • In Christ we experience God’s love
    • And in Christ we learn to balance responsibility

 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?
  • Why do you think this stood out to you?

2. How do you feel when you hear children laughing and playing happily? (What memory does this evoke for you?)

3. What is your experience of the security God gives?

  • How might we give a sense of security to those close to us (especially children)?

4. Have you looked up at the stars at night and contemplated like David did? What happened within you as a consequence of doing this?

5. Who do you love? (That is, who are you mindful of, who affects you, who do you show care for?)

  • How might we show love to those around us (especially children)?

6. What does it mean to have dominion over the animals, birds and fish? (What does it mean to live responsibly?)

7. What do we need to keep our balance?

  • What are some of the symptoms of having an over developed sense of responsibility?
  • What are some of the symptoms of having an under developed sense of responsibility?
  • Thinking about these symptoms is there anything you need to do to restore the balance of responsibility?