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Not Everything is Beneficial: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast The First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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On our podcast, the goal is not just to share the sermons we've
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preached, but to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're
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learning and what God is doing in US and in our community.
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You can find more information about our church at
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fumccollingswood. Dot org.
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Thanks for listening. This morning scripture reading
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comes from. Ephesians.
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Chapter 5, starting in verse. 8. For you were once darkness, but
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now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.
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For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness,
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righteousness, and truth. And find out what pleases the
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Lord. Have nothing to do with the
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fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
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It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in
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secret. But everything exposed by the
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light becomes visible, and everything that is illuminated
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becomes a light. This is why it is said, Wake up,
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sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
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Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise,
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making the most of every opportunity, because the days
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are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish,
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but understand what the Lord's will is.
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Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery.
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Instead, be filled with the Spirit speaking to one another
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with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit.
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Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving
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thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Word of God for the
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people of God. Thanks be to God.
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Amen. And I want to tell you about the
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day I had on Tuesday. So I woke up on Tuesday still
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sick, realizing that the snow hadn't yet been removed after it
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stopped snowing like it was scheduled to be.
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Then I had an 8:00 AM MRI on my knee, which is still bothering
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me after my October surgery. I go back and see the doctor on
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Wednesday of this week to see what the next steps are.
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Then that morning I went to PT and put in all that hard work of
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trying to get my knee back to where it could be and while I
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was at PTI, got a text message that a tree had fallen in the
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church parking lot and had to be dealt with.
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By the time I sat down with Jeremy to record the podcast, he
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very clearly had a sense of how my day had been going, and it
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wasn't great. The afternoon was fairly quiet.
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Then I met with a family from the community about doing a
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funeral for a family member of theirs, and by the time our
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prayer session was approaching at 7 PMI realized I just wasn't
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going to make it. I wasn't going to last through
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that. So the pastor called out of
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prayer and as I settled into the couch that evening, I was
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looking for something right I I was annoyed that there weren't
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any ice cream or cookies in the house.
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So I ended up turning on the Sixers game, scrolling on my
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phone and it wasn't until the next morning as my stomach
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grumbled from fasting, which I gave up by lunchtime that day.
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Just so you don't think your pastor is some super good
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Christian or anything like that. I'm just, I'm one of you.
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But it was in that moment of my stomach grumbling that God
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shined a light on what was really going on in my heart.
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He whispered to me, He said you're, you were looking talking
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about the night before. He said you were looking for
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relief. What you needed was restoration.
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You were looking for relief, but what you needed was restoration.
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Restoration. And I remember the idea of a
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quote that I had read before, and so I found it in a book.
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Google's an amazing thing. Found exact quote I was looking
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for. John Eldridge writes this.
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He says relief is momentary. It's checking out, numbing,
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sedating yourself. Television is relief.
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Eating a bag of cookies is relief.
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Tequila is relief. And let's be honest, relief is
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what we reach for because it's immediate and usually within our
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grasp. Most of us turn there when what
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we really need is restoration, Friends, there are going to be
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days when we need to be restored, right?
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There going to be days, maybe even weeks, where it just seems
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like the things keep piling up one on top of the other, like
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you can't quite get ahead. Days that drag us down and beat
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us up. But when what we really need is
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restoration, when we often go looking for relief.
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You see, we want to be distracted from our problems,
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right? We we want to escape from what
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feels like normal life. And so we often turn to
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entertainment for relief, right? Not realizing our need for
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restoration or not realizing that they're not actually the
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same thing. Now, before I go any further,
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let me just say that entertainment is not inherently
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wrong. I'm not trying to say that we
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should go back to the days when the church said you shouldn't go
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to the movie theater or own a radio or ATV or anything like
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that. But it is worth noting that that
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in all of our human needs, entertainment isn't really one
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of them, right? It's only purpose is for our
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pleasure. And again, pleasure isn't wrong.
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God gave us that ability to feel pleasure, and he gave us things
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that are pleasurable. But entertainment's not a need,
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and entertainment doesn't actually produce or achieve
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anything for us beyond that pleasure.
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At the same time, though, the content of the entertainment
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that we choose to consume is constantly forming us
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spiritually. The question is whether we'll
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recognize that or not. It may not be explicit spiritual
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formation, but that is its effect, especially over time.
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So this morning I I want to look at a few passages of scripture
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that could inform how we engage with entertainment and
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ultimately how we choose to spend our time, attention, and
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energy. Because that's really what we're
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talking about when we're talking about our entertainment choices,
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right? What are we giving our time, our
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attention and our energy to now, these passages we're going to
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look at this morning, they're they're not specifically about
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entertainment. The authors of the Bible could
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never have imagined a television or the Internet or what have
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you. And Paul didn't write to the
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Romans about whether they should attend the gladiator fights or
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the Greeks in Corinth about going to the theater.
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But I believe the principles that we see in these passages
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can be applied to the things we're thinking about when it
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comes to our entertainment. And so the first passage I want
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to look at this morning is that passage from Ephesians chapter 5
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that Jeremy read for us this morning beginning in verse
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eight. I'm not going to read this one
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again, but I'll read some others as we go on.
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But this passage that Jeremy read for us in this part of
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Ephesians, Paul is talking about the differences in the way that
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non Christians and Christians live their lives, right?
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It shouldn't look the same. Spoiler alert, Paul calls us to
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live differently than the world lives, or differently from the
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way that we ourselves used to live before we came to know
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Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Paul says we're to find out what
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actually pleases God. We're to have nothing to do with
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the deeds of the darkness, and we're to be careful how we live.
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This is how our lives are to look now that we are children of
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light, as Paul calls us here in this, in this passage.
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And as Christians, I think we get that when it comes to our
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behavior, right? The things we do, we know what
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we're not supposed to do. We we know what we're supposed
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to do. We know we're not supposed to
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lie or steal or cheat or murder and on and on and on, right?
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But then how many times do we go home at the end of of a day, put
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on a show or a movie, read a book which glorifies the the
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very behaviors we know we're not supposed to do?
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How do we reconcile that with with not even mentioning what
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the disobedient do in secret, as Paul says here in this passage?
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How, What do we do with that? How do we reconcile who we used
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to be, the way the world lives, how we're called to live as a
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church, and the content we choose to consume as Christians?
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Second passage I want to bring to your attention this morning
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comes from First Corinthians chapter 10, beginning in verse
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23. Paul's writing here says I have
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the right to do anything you say, but not everything is
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beneficial. I have the right to do anything,
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but not everything is constructive.
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No one should seek their own good but the good of others.
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Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions
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of conscience. For the earth is the Lord's and
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everything in it. If an unbeliever invites you to
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a meal and you want to go, eat whatever's put before you
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without raising questions of conscience.
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But if someone says to you this has been offered in a sacrifice,
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then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and
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for the sake of conscience. I'm referring to the other
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person's conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being
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judged by another's conscience? If I take part in the meal with
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Thanksgiving, why am I denounced because of something I thank God
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for? So whether you eat or drink or
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whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
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Here Paul is, is pushing back on a common piece of pop
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philosophy, right? I have the right to do anything.
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He's pushing back on those who would say, specifically within
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the church, that because of Jesus's defeat of sin and the
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forgiveness that he offers us, we're now free to live however
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we want, right? This was called antinomianism.
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Put that down for your little heresy checklist.
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Anti nomianism, anti meaning law, Nomos meaning or antos
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meaning no, no, anti meaning no. And nomos meaning law no law.
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There's no law because we're under grace, right?
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Wouldn't that be a great place to live?
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But it's just not true. They'd say things like I have
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the right to do anything. And Paul would say, yes, you do,
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but not everything is beneficial.
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Politics, well, maybe you do, but not everything is
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constructive. There is freedom for the
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believer. We're not tied into all the same
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things we were before we came to Christ.
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He's set us free from those things.
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But just because you can do everything doesn't mean you
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should, right? Not everything is actually
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helpful to us. On top of that, we don't want to
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use our own freedom in a way that harms the conscience of a
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brother or sister in Christ, as we was talking about here about
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the sacrifices and earlier in First Corinthians.
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In chapter 8, he says, in verses 9 to 13, he says, Be careful,
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however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a
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stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak
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conscience sees you with all of your knowledge eating in an
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idol's temple, won't that person be emboldened to eat what's
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sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister
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for whom Christ died is destroyed by your knowledge.
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When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak
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conscience, you sin against Christ.
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Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall
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into sin, I will never eat meat again so that I will not 'cause
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them to fall. Remember Paul also never got to
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Texas and had BBQ. Just say, but he's saying here
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that we don't want to be a stumbling block just because we
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have freedom, just because we have a right to do something.
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We don't want to be a stumbling block for those who might be
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weaker in their faith, who might not have experienced that same,
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that same freedom that we have experienced.
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And, and when we do these things and we drag people along with
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it, we actually sin against them and we sin against Christ when
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we exercise the freedom that they don't have.
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Now, again, these two passages are specifically speaking to
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dietary issues, whether a Christian could eat meat that
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had been previously sacrificed to an idol.
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And Paul's basic answer is, yeah, you can.
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It actually doesn't matter. Those idols don't have any
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power. You're set free by the God who's
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purchased you with his blood. But he tells the church you can
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eat whatever is put in front of you with a clear conscience.
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You go to someone's house, you don't know what happened with
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the meat before it got to the plate.
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Go ahead and eat it. It's no big deal.
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But if it's a big deal for somebody else in the room, if
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it's a big deal for the person that you're eating with, if it
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offends them, don't do it right. Love is the greater principle.
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Love is the higher value over our individual freedoms.
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So you want to watch a movie with a friend?
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You find out they have a conviction that that maybe they
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shouldn't, as a Christian, watch movies that are rated R OK,
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Don't. Don't try to convince them that
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it's OK for Christians to watch rated R movies.
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Choose to love them. Watch something rated PG,
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something rated G. Your brother or sister's
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conscience is more important than your freedom.
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Choose the way of love, which by the way, is also often the way
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of self denial, right? In this theories on denying
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ourselves, sometimes choosing to love the people around us, the
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people we're in community with, the people we're walking with in
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fellowship. We have to choose to deny
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ourselves. We have to choose to deny a
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right we have, a freedom we feel OK about.
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We deny it for the sake of love. We can love others in our lives
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by laying down those rights and freedoms, particularly but not
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exclusively in those areas where we don't have the same freedoms,
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regardless of the reason as to why that's the case, right?
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We don't have to evaluate someone else's reason or
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conviction or their conscience in order to respect it.
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One more passage, because we still have communion this
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morning too. Don't worry, I haven't
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forgotten. In Philippians 48, Paul says
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whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,
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whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable,
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if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such
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things. Does that describe the content
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of the entertainment that we're choosing to consume?
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Does it describe the things that we're giving our time,
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attention, and energy to? If not, maybe we need to
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reconsider that. If not, maybe we need to deny
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ourselves because those things are shaping us.
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They're forming us spiritually, whether we acknowledge it or
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not. Back in that passage from
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Ephesians 5 that we started with, towards the end, in verses
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15 to 16, Paul calls us. To make the most of every
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opportunity we have, he says verse 15.
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He says be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as
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wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are
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evil. So when you sit down like I did
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on Tuesday night to watch something, or you pick up a book
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to read, or you grab your computer or your phone to scroll
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the Internet or social media, are you making the most of every
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opportunity? Or in 1st Corinthians 10, that
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passage we were reading, Paul says.
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So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for
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the glory of God. Does our use of time, does our
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entertainment, does it match that verse?
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Again, it's not wrong to watch a ball game or show, to read a
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novel, but are we making the most of that opportunity?
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Are we doing that for the glory of God?
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Maybe we need to ask ourselves, is there somewhere in my life
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that I need to deny myself the pleasure of relief for the sake
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of God's glory or for the sake of a brother or sister and what
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God is doing in their life? Or even to cooperate with the
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transformation that God wants to work in my own life to bring his
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Kingdom in the world in me. Because what's it mean to bring
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the Kingdom of God in this world, right?
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It means to extend the realm of God's effective will, right?
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That's a very technical definition, right, to extend the
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realm of God's effective will. But it means expanding the area
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where people say yes to Jesus, right?
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And that starts in US. And so as we move into our time
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of Holy Communion this morning, we encourage you to do a little
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inventory of your entertainment and how you choose to use your
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time. And Aaron, I'm going to put you
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on some. Will you come up and and just
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play a little bit in a minute? What are the things that you're
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choosing to consume for entertainment?
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What's the content of the shows you watch, the books you read,
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the websites you visit, the podcast you listen to, the pages
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that you scroll through? Are they true, noble, right.
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Pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy.
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Are they helping you to make the most of every opportunity to
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join God in His work in the world?
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Can you honestly say that you enjoy them for the glory of God?
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And again, I'm not saying don't. Don't do entertainment.
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There's something glorious about sitting at a ball game with a
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good friend or with one of my boys.
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What about your brothers and sisters?
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The freedoms that you've received in Christ, Are you
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actually willing to lay them down for the sake of your
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brother or sister? Or are you secretly, or maybe
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not so secretly, judging them for not being where you are?
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Maybe this morning Jesus is speaking to you and and he's
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inviting you to experience not just relief, but real
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restoration. Maybe he wants to be the one you
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turn to at the end of a long day rather than pulling out the
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carton of ice cream with a bottle of wine, turning on the
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TV, or what have you. Maybe rather than checking out
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for a while, he wants you to check in with him.
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Maybe he's asking you. Would you deny that right you
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have. Would you deny yourself that
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freedom for the sake of what He's doing in US and wants to do
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through us for the sake of the world?
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I want to invite you just where you are before we move into our
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communion liturgy and all that, remembering the sacrifice that
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Jesus made so that we could be set free from the power of sin
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and death. Would you ask God, just bow your
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head where you are? Jesus, is there anything you
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need to speak to me about my entertainment, about my time,
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about my energy, my attentions, the things I'm giving myself to?