[Passage: 1 Cor 10: 1 – 22, preached  Sunday morning, 11 Jan, 2009]

WE HAVE spent a lot of time in 1 Corinthians looking at Paul’s twin concerns: that the Christians in Corinth should do nothing to break down fellowship and nothing to hinder evangelism.

There are many challenges to fellowship. Chapter 10 focuses on that single question: how can the Corinthians keep together in a world where the tendency is to split?

I said a couple of weeks ago that small can be good, that our real aim has to be the kind of unity of purpose that brings about fruitfulness.
In other words, go for effectiveness, and size can look after itself.
Paul’s wants the Corinthians united, so that the gospel will go out in its full power. Effective unity is rooted in grace, peace and holiness.
So he begins with Israel’s experience under Moses. He says,

1COR 10:1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptised 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

Look at all the alls in that paragraph!
They were all under the cloud.
They all passed through the sea.
They were all baptised into Moses
They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink.

The first thing Paul wants them to focus on is that shared experience as God’s people.

What do we have in common that makes us one?
Have we all trusted in Christ? Have we all — those of us who are ready for it — have we all been baptised into Christ? Do we all recognise a single community as our spiritual home base? Do we all expect the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth? Do we all recognise the Bible’s authority?
Then we have all the makings of the kind of unity that Paul wants the Corinthians to have.

One of the greatest factors in the development of community is shared experiences. These are the stuff of understanding.

I work with a some North Americans. Richard had a problem with buying Pizza when he first came to Australia. He ordered two pies at a take–away shop. They didn’t know what he was talking about. In the US, pizzas are pies.
So Richard was thinking about pizzas, and the shop assistant was thinking of beef pies with mashed potato, gravy and peas on top.
Richard was confused. He didn’t know what to say. The assistant was confused. He didn’t know what to do.
They had no shared experience. In the US, pie means pizza, in Australia, pie means pie.

That’s one strength of shared experiences. You all understand what you are talking about.

But Paul goes right on to warn,
5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.

It is all very well to have shared experiences. But where is our heart?

I worked with a young woman who had lunched with the team, who had learnt the skills, who had been included in everything.
We all had a lot of shared experiences.
One day she went off her brain, called the manager abusive, said she couldn’t work with people like him, resigned, and stormed out.

The manager concerned was a bit abrupt at times, but everyone knew he was fair and tried to encourage people, not put them down. We couldn’t understand what it was all about.
To this day, no one knows what she was complaining about, but one thing is certain. She shared in the experiences of the team, but she was not part of the team. Was it based on reality? Was it just something going on in her head? Whatever, the fact is that her heart was not with the rest of the team.

And that is exactly what Paul warns about. All the Israelites had shared the same experiences as they wandered across the Sinai peninsula, as they crossed the Gulf of Aqaba, as they poured into Midian and finally reached Mt Sinai, yet some were only there for the ride.
Do you remember that, when Moses came down from the mountain, with the stone tablets of the law in his hands, he heard singing and shouting in the camp, and the people had made a golden calf to the moon god? That was the beginning of woes. There was idolatry, there was grumbling, they tested God, they committed sexual immorality. Just about anything the Commandments forbade, they did.

And judgment fell on them.

I don’t want to harp on judgment. It is not a Christian way. But let’s be realistic about our options.
During the week the major outdoor advertising company decided not to accept atheist advertisements for buses, advertisements saying that there is probably no God, so people can stop worrying and take life easily, or words to that effect.

Someone wrote to The Herald and said,

“The fear which underpins all religions has now led to an advertising agency’s refusal to accept atheistic advertising.”

I have knocked off a response suggesting that fear does not underpin all religions. I said that neither Buddhism nor Evangelical Christianity is fear based. I don’t know if it will be published.
But you can be sure that I am not wanting to terrify you into doing something you would not do.
What I am saying is, are you sure, am I sure, that our hearts are in our faith, or are we just tagging along with the others?

Paul says,

1COR 10:6 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 pagan 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 the Lord, 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.

Incidentally, that 23000 is almost certainly a mistranslation, because probably only about that many actually left Egypt. The same word means thousand or means tribe or even military unit. Maybe 150 or 200 died in that event. Regardless, Paul wants us to look at ourselves, and not try to bat for both teams. We can’t serve God and idols at the same time, nor can we focus on ourselves and reject God’s way.
So the passage definitely contains a warning. Our God is a God of love, but he can’t tolerate it forever when we decide to play games instead of follow the fiery, cloudy pillar as it leads us in the straight paths.

However, as I said, Evangelical Christianity, gospel Christianity, is not underpinned by fear, but by hope and faith and confidence that the God who has brought us this far will see us through to the end.

And Paul follows up his warnings with a word of hope:

1COR 10:11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

In other words, don’t be overly confident. It is one thing to trust in God; it is another thing to test him.
The Greeks had a term for it. The called it, hubris. It carries the idea of thinking you can get away with things. Originally it was used to talk about people who were over confident with the Greek gods, and thought they could do anything and not have to face consequences.

There was an old chap who attended this church a long time ago, and he popped in one day just after I had paid the car insurance. I remarked how expensive insurance was.

“I never insure my car!” he told me.

“You mean, you only have third party property damage insurance?” I said.

“No — only the compulsory insurance you have to get with the registration.”

“How can you not have insurance?” I asked. I was flabbergasted.

“I trust God to care for me,” he said. “You should, too.”

I tried to explain the difference between trusting God and presuming on him. I tried to tell him that we have to take responsibility for the things we can be responsible for, and trust God for the things we can’t be responsible for.

He looked at me as though I had just handed him a copy of Watchtower magazine.

On Friday he popped in to tell me how the Thursday night Bible study group went and to tell me he was getting insurance on his car. They had talked about the difference between faith and presumption.

“I’ve been presuming on God, haven’t I?” he said.

Faith acts on God’s promises; presumption expects God to pick up the mess we leave.
And that was the attitude of the Israelites.
It is also an attitude we can all fall into.

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

says Paul.

In my 25 years here at Marrickville, can tell you that there have been times when I have come close to a serious fall. You are human, and you have had your own temptations and tests, so you know what I mean.
One way or another, my temptations have usually been to do with giving up: giving up as a pastor, giving up on some of the more difficult relationships, giving up where the impact would be on far more than just this church.

I knew the kinds of thing Paul meant when he said that he had even despaired of life.

But at those worst crisis points, something happened that gave me a way out.
As Paul says,

God is faithful, and will not let you ber tempted beyond what you can bear.

And, as Paul also says,

When you are tempted, God will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

One time, the phone rang when I was on the point of giving up. Where, moments before, I felt I had only one choice, I suddenly had two — keep going where I had been going, or answer that call.

On one of the worst days of my life, I was putting things in order so that I could jump ship, one of the nuns from around the corner arrived with a bottle of wine in her hand.

“I thought you might need encouragement today,” she said, “And I bought you this.”

She had some clues about what was happening, but she was also listening to the Spirit when she was praying, and her timing was exquisite. She moved on and never knew quite what a lifesaver she had been.

If you have the slightest intention of going wholeheartedly with Jesus and not just tagging along with the rest, God will watch over you at those points of testing and of temptation and give you a way out.

Paul lays it on the line for the Corinthians.

If they share in the experience of meeting with their brothers and sisters around the Lord’s table, if they eat the same bread and drink the same cup, how can they, in the very next breath, slide back into old ways?

1COR 10:14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.
10:18 Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? 19 Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. 22 Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

The things we do together as a church — the communion we symbolise by taking the bread and cup at the Lord’s supper, the experiences we talk to each other about in our sharing times — these things are not only shared experiences, they are also our declaration that we are committed to a shared life, that we are not wandering alone in the Arabian desert, but we are marching together under Christ our head to the land he promises us.

In our society, we are not directly tempted into pagan celebrations, but it can happen indirectly, and that’s sometimes more dangerous. We can talk about being Christian yet go along with the world’s pagan ideals.

Noam Chomsky, a brilliant anarchist Jew, made a documentary, The manufacture of consent, in which he argues that we in the west are more effectively manipulated to agree with the world around us than people in Communist Russia ever were, because in Russia they were constantly on the watch for anyone who stepped out of line, but in our world we barely worry, because people assume that consumerism and capitalism and so many aspects of our world are exactly the way they should be.

In effect, we eat the bread of demons every day and don’t even notice. Even when we do notice, like when we see how the world has stolen Christmas from Christians, when we see advertising on TV urging us to be more greedy and take more, even when all those things and more crowd around us until we feel trapped, we still don’t think it is bad enough for us to take action.

And here’s the point, the thing Paul was talking about right at the beginning.

If we claim to share an experience of Jesus, if we claim to be one in the Spirit and one in the Lord, then we have to build on that unity and ensure it remains strong, so that we can actively resist the demonic forces of our world.

We need to be bound together with strong chains of love and community, or we will find that we thought we were standing, but we fell with a crash.

Keep the unity, steer clear of the demons in our society, and God’s blessings will be abundently ours!
AMEN