The Unwasted Life

Tape 2459.06 iLife #6, 1 Corinthians Series
Senior Pastor, Jeff Jones

How do we make choices when the issue is not black and white? How do we stay unified and still appealing to the world around us?

A look at 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14.

First a definition

IT (i.e. the gray area, the disputable thing):

IT includes things such as alcohol, movies, cable tv, rock/rap music, dancing, worship forms, dress codes, poker, smoking, tattoos, dating non-believers, etc.

How do you decide about the IT?

With you

• Develop your own convictions.

• 1 Corinthians 8:7-8
• 1 Corinthians 10:23

• Be solid and confident.

• Keep it between you and God:

  So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves.

  Romans 14:22

• Just because you can participate in some IT does not mean that you have to or should participate (personal hangups, your own weak areas)

With strong believers

Live out your convictions. They understand the freedoms we have in Christ.

With weak believers

• Limit your participation and educate them over time. They do not understand this area of freedom. They will often participate as well and violate their own conscious.

• 1 Corinthians 8:7-13

• Romans 14:13-15

With an unbeliever

Do whatever is best to help them come to know Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:27-29.

Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

1 Corinthians 9:19-23

With a legalist

Do not limit your freedom and confront the legalism head on. Jesus and Paul never appeased these legalists.

Do not listen to those who want to tell you the “right” things to do in these areas.

• Romans 14:1-3

• “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

  “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

  “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

  Matthew 23:23-28

• Colossians 2:16-23
• Galatians 2:11-14

What is your IT?

Listen to iLife: Beyond the Back and White—Choices in the Gray with iTunes.