Opening illustration: A man whose company provides data security for military space operations told me how vulnerable computers are to outside attack. During a training exercise, hackers shut down a highly protected system without stealing a password or cracking a code. They simply accessed the unsecured maintenance program for the building that housed the computers and turned off the air conditioning. When the computer room became too hot, the system automatically shut down.
As in military situations, overconfidence and a false sense of security can lead to defeat in our battle against the forces of evil. In 1 Corinthians 10:12, Paul cautioned, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” Eugene Peterson paraphrases this verse by saying, “Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.”
We are not told to try to outsmart the enemy of our souls, but to trust the One who can. “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape” (v.13). Confidence in God, not in ourselves, is the key to staying spiritually on guard. (David C. McCasland, ODB)
Introduction: Now, that is a powerful and dramatic passage. It relates to us an historical setting and then ties it in to the Corinthian scene and then pushes beyond that to speak to us today. It tells about a whole nation of people who were blessed by God, who enjoyed exceedingly abundant privilege, who received from God magnanimous gifts of his love and grace but who were destroyed in judgment.
The apostle Paul is going to warn us about the dreadful and severe consequences of sin. He is also going to challenge us to avoid sin and persevere in our Christian lives. Paul will argue that there is a very real possibility that many Christians will not finish their Christian lives well.
How to guard our heart and mind?
1. Understand our Great Spiritual Privileges (vs. 1-5)
And yet, with all of that expanse of spiritual privilege, Paul had the fear that in the exercise of his ministry, by failing to control his own body, he could be disqualified from service to Christ. And every believer ought to have that same idea. We have to live with that reality, that none of us is invincible. And a massive amount of privilege does not guarantee that we can live any way we want without consequence. I think that some people have assumed that because they have experienced so much blessing from God, they can live any way they want without any kind of judgment.
Classic illustration: Israel. So blessed, so privileged, so abundantly the recipients of God's grace, mercy, loving-kindness that they actually learned how to abuse His grace. They pushed to the limits of God's tolerance and they lived on the danger edge until finally disaster came. This is no second-hand generation folks. They knew God. They saw God. They felt God. They were involved in His miraculous and mighty power. They were all there.
You see, one of the things you have to deal with as a Christian is freedom. One of the things you have to deal with as a Christian is privilege. But you must deal with it in the way that Paul did, and he dealt with it by trying to control with his renewed mind the body which tends to want to lead us into sin.
I must look at my own life and say, "Ajai you have received great privilege." I have; I have received great privilege. I have had the privilege not only of learning from great and gifted men but of having great opportunity. I have the privilege of having great people around me who pour their life into me, who minister along side of me. I am now having the privilege to be able to reach even beyond this church in ministry, and I need to be very much aware that because God has blessed me so much does not cause me to live loosely and abuse that, but to live all the more tightly so that I would never to anything to be disqualified. And I live in that that sense of pressure, if you will, that Paul understood.
Great privilege does not mean God is looking at us and saying, "Well, I'm just going to give you everything because I like you better than anybody else. So feel free to do what you want." You've got to deal with this with your children, don't you? Sometimes you're so good to them and so kind and so gracious that they go too far. And you need to discipline to bring them back in. And so it is in the spiritual dimension. The Corinthians, frankly, were overconfident. They were abusing their liberty because they thought they had everything. God must really like them. Boy, He gave them everything. I mean, there were born out of a marvelous ministry of the apostle Paul himself.
2. Learn from our Predecessors Great Spiritual Failures (vs. 6-11)
Paul had the same thought in chapter 9, verse 27, as I said, the fear that in having so much privilege you would get so comfortable in God's blessing that you would fail in the area of self-control. Specifically, what went wrong? To go from the assets to the abuses? What went wrong? Here it is, verse 6 says, now, these things were our examples, our toupees, our types, figures, patterns, moral patterns. In other words this is an example for us folks, he says. And here's the key to the whole thing to interpret what he means by that, just this: If our sins correspond to their sins, our judgment will correspond to their judgment. That's the point. This is a pattern. This is something that you can trace out. It'll be this way with you as it was with them. If your sins correspond to that, your fate will correspond to theirs.
And what were their sins? First, that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Literally that we should not be longing after worldliness. This is the desire for that which belongs to the world. This is wanting what the world has. This is a half-hearted ... James calls it a double-minded approach. Listen to Numbers 11:4, "And the mixed multitude that were among them fell to lusting." And it isn't that they're talking about immorality here. But, rather, the children of Israel also wept. They started to cry, "Ooh, she'll give us flesh to eat." See, they were lusting after food. Well, what do you mean? Well, they were tired of the manna. They'd had manna, manna, manna, manna … and now, they were complaining.
God is just serious about this. I don't know if you remember Psalms 78 ... frightening. It says, "They tempted God," verse 18, "by asking food according to their desire." They didn't want what God wanted to give them, they wanted what they want. They spoke against God. They literally..."Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? What kind of God have we got? He can't put on a decent banquet. Behold, He smote the rock, and water gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can He give bread also? Can He provide flesh for his people?" This is mocking God.
There’s a warning given to “us” collectively. It is important to note the source of all four of these sins—craving evil things. The “craving of evil things” in 10:6b was an episode that took place about a year after the Exodus (Numbers 11). Israel had been given the law, they had built the tabernacle, and they had begun to travel. Do you know what the evil things were that they craved? Fresh vegetables! They were sick and tired of manna, and they wanted to go back to Egypt where there were cucumbers, garlic, and onions. We may laugh at this, but how often are we guilty of “craving” a new car, a larger home, a new partner, a new wardrobe? In light of eternity, these cravings are on par with cucumbers, garlic, and onions. Seriously, in eternity, what difference will it make what kind of car I drove or how large my home was? What difference will it make how successful I was in my job? Who will ask me what material possessions I provided for my children? Will I even care about those things? The answer is “NO!” Yet, Paul wants us to know that craving evil things can keep us from finishing well. Guard your heart and mind by learning from the Great Spiritual Failures of our forefathers. If you think you are smart and can experience and do things on your own to find out whether you are following a safe path or not, don’t be surprised to find yourself in a place from where there is no return.
Illustration: I see that happen in so many churches. We just teach love. If you have ever watched the Donohue show, there was this girl who wanted to be married by her pastor, and then she posed in a pornographic pose in Playboy magazine. And he refused to marry her to this guy. And so she wanted to go ... and she went on the Donohue show to tell the whole world what this pastor had done to her. She said, "It's none of his business. It's my right if I want to," she used the word fornicate "with my boyfriend for several years, and if I wanna pose in Playboy. Jesus would never condemn me for that." She said. "Jesus loves me. I believe in Jesus. I'm a Christian. I believe in his death and resurrection." She went on to say all that. "Jesus would never condemn me for that, and I don't think it’s right for him to condemn me."
Listen, if you could have a Jesus like that, people will line up to sign up or that Jesus. The whole place applauded like mad when the girl said that. Oh, you can preach that kind of Christianity and stack 'em in. Because people love a religion that doesn't put any compunctions on their immorality. And to ... that's exactly where the Israelites were. Hey, they wanted to worship God, only they wanted to reduce God to a form where he would tolerate their orgies. See? This is the kind of idol men create. And a church can come to the point where it restructures God to be the kind of God that tolerates all their excesses. And they've got an idol, not the true God. And it's that kind of idolatry that begins to destroy and disqualify.
Boy, we live in a day when that is rampant. Imagine somebody standing on national television saying, "I'm a Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ. And if I want to fornicate with my boyfriend, that's my privilege." There was a day not long ago when people would no more say that then any kind of evil thing. I mean, you wouldn't think of saying such a thing. But now, you can say it and say you're a Christian, so accepted. And when you say it, and it's true about you, you're disqualified. 23,000 people died in one day.
3. Have No Self-Confidence, Only Confidence-in-God (vs. 12-13)
Another way out of temptation provided by God is the advice Paul offers in verse 12: Don't be too sure of yourself. "If you think you are standing firm,” he says, "be careful that you don't fall!" A bit of humility, a little self-doubt can be a way out of a number of difficult situations.
Celebrity news is full of examples of people who think they can engage in all kinds of risky behaviors without consequences. They think that, because they make so much money, they're invincible. They think that, because they're so famous, they can do anything and it won't matter. But eventually, the laws of gravity, the laws of the land, and the laws of human limitations catch up with them. We make mistakes when we think we are too good to fail. We fall into temptation when we think that we are immune to evil. We commit sin when we think too highly of ourselves and go busting through life without sufficient caution.
In our Christian tradition, we uphold Jesus as the person who would have had the most reason to be sure of himself. If anyone ever lived a life without sin, it was Jesus. But even Jesus was tempted. How did he deal with that temptation? What was his way out? He humbled himself. Over and over the gospels portray Jesus as one who would lower himself to be present with the lowly, the sick, and the outcast of his society. Jesus bowed himself down and washed his disciples' dirty feet. Philippians 2 instructs us that "Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!”
A certain degree of self-confidence is necessary for us to do what is right and good. But we must also have a sense of humility that gives us pause. In situations of temptation, where it would be easy for us to make the wrong choice, some measure of self-questioning will often provide us with a better alternative. In this advice for us to not to be too sure of ourselves, God provides us away out.
Illustration: A man who was not an architect decided to draw the plans for his new home. He was very proud of what he had done. He hired a builder with the firm understanding that he would follow the blueprints exactly. "You may not like my plans, but they suit me. So don't even try to change anything, even if it appears best in your judgment. I want to take all the credit and show the world what I can do."
The owner was out of town while the house was being framed but on his return he went immediately to inspect it. With his plans in hand, he and the builder checked out the downstairs. "Just like I designed it," he complimented the builder.
"Now let's take a look upstairs." Looking around he couldn't find the staircase. "There isn't any," the builder said. "The owner was irate. “How could any carpenter in his right mind build a two-story house without a staircase?" The builder spread out the plans, and recalled the agreement. To his amazement and embarrassment, the owner found that he had forgotten to design any steps.
We smile at that but there is a lesson in this story that hits close to home. All around us we have people who want a second story, a third story, or a fourth floor to their lives. They're not happy being on ground level with the rest of us. Some even have visions of a skyscraper.
But pride and self-confidence rob some of ever achieving their goals. They brag about being self-made. They need neither God nor anyone else to plan their lives. That's why some end up with the goal, but no steps to achieve it! If only their confidence was in their Creator the Master Builder. (Jerry Cosper, SC)
Application: When temptation knocks, send Jesus to the door.
