All right, today’s sermon is called you Can’t Handle the Truth. Anyone know what that’s from A few good men, right? Jack Nicholson? He, you know Tom Cruise is the young upstart lawyer. Jack Nicholson is the grisly old, cranky veteran in the army. And the lawyers he’s questioning him on the stand and asking why these guys died.
If you haven’t seen this, it’s like 35 years old, so you should have seen it by now. But anyway, tom Cruise yells at him I want the truth. And Jack Nicholson responds you can’t handle the truth and I love it. It’s great.
The way that we handle the truth matters, okay. So do you guys know Jesus loves you? Good, you should know that. All right, everyone says it all the time Jesus loves you, jesus loves you. But what do you do with that? How do you handle that? What does that mean? Are you free?
If you’ve listened to anything I’ve said for the past 15, 16 weeks, are you free in the Lord, like you’re forgiven? I want to hear yes, I’m free, I’m amen, yes, okay, excited. This is the good news, the gospel. Feel free to be excited and happy about what Jesus has done for you. Yes, we are free from all our sins, so we’re not going to be judged by your sin. Everything you’ve ever done will do. It’s all forgiven. You are a child of God. He loves you. It is great.
What are you going to do with that information, that truth, that is true. What are you going to do with it? What you do with it matters, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today, in kind of a roundabout way, you’ll see, because the chapter we’re studying we’ve been going through the book of 1 Corinthians and we’re in chapter 8 this week, and in chapter 8, it’s about things offered to idols. Okay, so let’s begin reading in chapter 8 of 1 Corinthians Now, concerning things offered to idols. Let’s stop right there. What in the world is that talking about?
We don’t have temples to deities like they did in the world that this was written to. Okay, what does this mean? So these temples where they would worship these false gods, which are actually demons? Okay, they would offer meat to them, and so the question is well, let me just explain it real quick. So this meat would be offered on these pagan altars, and so it was dedicated to demons. So it’s like we’ll call it demon meat.
You could go to the store and buy demon meat. So this meat would be divided into three portions when you took it to your demon church, and one third would be burnt in honor of the demon god and one third would be given to the worshiper to take home and eat, and the other third was given to the priest and he could do whatever he wanted with it. Well, if the priest didn’t want to eat his portion because he was vegan or something demon priest probably would be, but just kidding he sold. He would sell his demon meat at HEB, and when HEB would get their demon meat, it would be a lot cheaper than the grass-fed, free-range meat that they usually sold. So you had this cheaper meat and people loved to bargain, even back then. Even Christians loved to bargain, okay, so now we have these questions that arise in our mind after we’re learning about this Are demons gods?
No, they’re not gods, okay, but they were angels. So does everyone know that demons are real? They were angels, okay. God created a race, you could say, of angels there’s all kinds of different kinds of angels and they were made to serve God and he had them here on the earth, like you know, and they were kind of taking care of men, and then a third of them decided to join Satan in his rebellion against God. So when Satan said I think I should be worshipped and I think I’m a better God than God is, then a third of the angels were like, yeah, let’s rebel. And so they became demons. So they’re still angels technically, but they are fallen angels and that’s what demons are. So are they gods? Well, they would talk to people and they would pretend to be gods. So you had Baal and Ashtoreth and Molech and all these ancient gods. You heard about them and people were like sure that they were talking to a god. And sometimes these demons would do things to make them think that they were a god, were real. But we know the truth they’re not gods, they were just angels, okay.
So the second question that comes to mind can we buy
cheap meat if we know it’s just meat? Well, yes, we’ll see, that’s just fine. What if someone serves us some demon meat at their house? So we go over to someone’s house, they’re like, let’s all eat some demon meat, is that okay? Well, we’ll find it. What if we go to a restaurant that’s the demon meat restaurant? Can we eat the demon meat at the demon meat restaurant? Good question, and does any of this matter to us in 2025? Very good offer to idols.
We know that we all have knowledge, so just picture, paul is kind of saying this a little bit sarcastically. What he’s saying is we all know the truth, guys. We all know the truth. This really isn’t maybe worth my time, because I already know the truth about it. Maybe that’s true. Maybe you already know that the demon meat is not really demon meat, it’s just meat, and you’re free to eat the demon meat. Okay, because it’s not really demon meat, it’s just meat. But it’s the way you handle that truth. That’s the point of this chapter. It’s the way you handle that truth. That’s the point of this chapter.
Okay, because just knowing what’s right and wrong isn’t the definition of success for a child of God. In fact, that’s still the old covenant. The old covenant is is there anything wrong with the Ten Commandments? The law? No, it does exactly what it was designed to do. It tells you what’s right and wrong, but it’s not a way for living. It’s not possible for us to keep it, and the old covenant was never meant to be something that you lived by, because we suck at living by it. We are terrible at living by the law. We can’t do it. It doesn’t give us life. So all we’re left with is ourselves trying to keep the rules.
So just knowing what’s right and wrong doesn’t make you a Christian, even though that’s what most Christians think makes you a Christian. Oh, what makes you a Christian? Well, I believe in the Ten Commandments. People say that. People say that, or let’s put Ten Commandments in every single classroom and see that that’ll make everyone Christians, or let’s put 10 commandments in every single classroom and see that that’ll make everyone Christians. That’ll make us a Christian nation again. But that doesn’t work either. See, just knowing the truth doesn’t? It’s not the life that Jesus gives you, it’s not the love that Jesus gives you. It’s important to know the truth, but that doesn’t define what success is. So just knowing what we should or shouldn’t do or we can do isn’t the good news or the freedom that we’ve been called to.
So let’s do a little exercise. Let’s put a name on the situation, so maybe it hits a little closer to home. So we could say, like Paul, we all know the rules, we all got our opinions on what’s right and wrong, okay. Like we all know that cursing is bad, we all know getting drunk is bad. We all know gossip is bad. We all know looking at pornography is bad. We all know hating people is bad. We all know greed is bad. We all know fornication or sex outside of marriage is bad. We know adultery or sex with someone else besides your wife is bad. We all know fornication or sex outside of marriage is bad. We know adultery or sex with someone else besides your wife is bad. We all know.
Fill in the blank, there’s so many things that everyone would pretty much agree yeah, it’s bad. And then we know good things too. We know it’s always good to save a buck, to be frugal, it’s always good to give generously, it’s always good to work hard, it’s always good to be dedicated, it’s always good to avoid this or that. So we all got these opinions. We all have these things and they may be true. They may be mostly true. They may be true sometimes and not other times, but we have these opinions on how we should live and how other people should live. By the way, do you know that an opinion without 3.14 is just an onion? Think about it, write it down. You’ll get it. Because pie yes, you take pie out. It’s just onion. There you go. Well done, you got it All right.
So just because we know the truth, just because we know what’s right and wrong, doesn’t mean you can live or treat people without love. That’s the point of what’s going on here. Just knowing right and wrong doesn’t mean you can treat people without love. Because what does he say here? He says knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. That’s the principle of this chapter. Okay, it doesn’t matter if you know all the rules and how to apply them. If you choose to not be loving, it doesn’t matter.
Knowledge can lead to pride or arrogance. Okay, knowledge can lead to pride or arrogance. Okay, it does lead to pride or arrogance. When individuals rely solely on their intellectual understanding. They become self-centered and self-sufficient, focusing on their own rights or freedoms without considering the impact on others. So this kind of knowledge can create a superiority and a division within the community, like I know what I’m supposed to do and you guys are just a mess, but I’m better than you.
Love, on the other hand, prioritizes other people. Just making people a priority in your life, listening to them, paying attention to them, serving them that’s what matters most, he says. He says without love, it doesn’t matter how much you know, because pride and self-focus will ruin our kingdom impact or our ability to serve God and
build his kingdom here on earth. That’s what God cares about. Okay, god cares about his kingdom of love and redemption, saving people in this world. And if we’re self-centered, if we’re only focused on me, my job, my life, what I have going on, or my freedom, what God has you know, I’m just enjoying my little bubble then we will not be beneficial to his kingdom. And this is the only thing that you’ll regret when you get to heaven, because all your sin is going to be taken care of, you’re going to be forgiven, you’re going to be saved, but you will regret making self-centered choices, every self-centered choice. You’ll regret it. You’ll think in heaven why didn’t I just trust him completely? Why didn’t I serve him with my whole heart and life?
It says here if anyone thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet, as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him, as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him. So he’s saying it doesn’t matter what you know, it matters who you know, or really who knows you. That’s pushing us, that points us towards relationship that we have with God. That’s what it’s all about.
Following the new rules and knowing what’s right and wrong never invites us into a closer relationship with God. There’s this idea that well, if you know God, you’ll do what he says. But that’s not always true. You have to know God and know his love. Then that transforms your behavior, not just you deciding well, god is worth it, god is good, so I need to do what is right and or not do what is wrong. So this relationship, it’s about who you know. It’s about being connected to God through Jesus. That’s what produces this love, instead of just knowing what’s right and wrong. God loved us first. God connected us to him through Jesus.
So knowing someone in the Bible is a description of intimate relationship. It’s not just I know who Donald Trump is. If I was a picture of people, I would be able to pick out his tan. It’s unique, right, I know who he is, but if you were to ask him, he does not know me. At least, I don’t think so, because we don’t have an intimate relationship but with our Father.
When we say we know God and God knows us is describing an intimate relationship. I know my Father and he knows me, and that’s what it’s all about Us personally connecting to God through how does that happen? Through faith only. It never happens by knowing the rules or keeping the rules. What you do matters, but that’s not how we get connected to Him. It wasn’t your good choices that led you to God. It wasn’t your keeping the rules that led you to God. It was grace and love that saved us. Right, amen, amen. And it’s the same grace and love that is transforming us every day, as we receive it, as we remember it, as we focus on it. So knowing that truth is the basis of humility. It’s not about what I do. It’s about what God did. What you did or do doesn’t move the needle. What God did is our whole life.
Our confidence isn’t in our works or our wisdom or our opinions of the rules. We need to walk in humility and consider others as more important than ourselves. To reveal that our lives are controlled and impacted by God’s love. To reveal that our lives are controlled and impacted by God’s love, not just the rules. Okay, so in 1 Peter 5.5, it says this. It says likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility, and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. So humility impacts our relationship not just with God but with other people. So it matters.
Humility matters in how you connect with and how you interact with all other people, and it’s the only way that we can really love people is when we consider them as being important. Does that mean you have to think less of yourself, like, oh, I’m just trash, nobody loves me? No, that’s not true. That’s not the truth and that’s not what humility is. Humility is not thinking less of yourself and thinking, oh, everyone is just better than me. Humility is not thinking less of yourself and thinking, oh, everyone is just better than me. It’s just not thinking of yourself at all. Just don’t think of yourself, don’t worry about yourself, trust God with you and your business, and then other people think about them, love them, lift them up. That’s how humility, and God says, when he sees that, that he pours out grace upon that love and it becomes powerful. He says, therefore, going back to our text in 1 Corinthians so, therefore, so he just told us, if anyone thinks he knows anything, he doesn’t know, as he ought to know. So humility. You got to have humility, therefore. So, in light of knowledge puffs up, but love builds up, and humility it’s all about loving others, he says.
Concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no other God but one, even if there were so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father of whom are all things, and we for him, and one, lord, jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live. Okay, so here’s the truth. He says that you do need to know we live. Okay, so here’s the truth. He says that you do need to know.
Idols are pointless because they worship a god that doesn’t exist or has no power. Most idols, again, worship demons. So demons do exist, but they aren’t gods at all. They can’t help people in any way and they wouldn’t want to. They just want to destroy people’s lives. So the entire system of worshiping false gods is pointless and a waste of time and we don’t have to worry about it, he says.
But even if they were powerful gods, he says it doesn’t matter to us because
we have one who’s stronger and more loving than any of them, and he, jesus, is everything to us. We need nothing else besides him. He is our source of life. He is our whole purpose, our whole life. Simply put, we live only for Jesus. So we are completely free. Nothing else matters to us. He is our God and more than that, he is our father. So our love for him isn’t just like a slave to God thing. It’s like being a son to a father, and that’s what’s so like.
Messed up in the world at the way that they view being a Christian, and even a lot of people in the church they think being a Christian is about. I have to follow the rules of my. They call him father, but they just really mean tyrant slave owner. If I don’t do these things, he’s going to be angry with me. And Paul is saying listen, we all know the truth. The truth is he’s our father. He’s never going to reject you, even if you screw up every day. He loves you so much. You’re his beloved child and there is grace for you. That’s the truth. So where am I at? I lost my spot, okay? So he says back in 1 Corinthians.
However, there is not in everyone that knowledge. For some with consciousness of the idol until now eat as a thing offered to an idol and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. So not everyone understood the simple truth that God is the only God. Back then it was very, very, very common to believe that there were more than one God, that Jesus was just one and he was one that a bunch of people were following. But you know, there’s other gods and I got to kind of go to the God grocery store and pick out which one I want for me and they were like competing and you just had to choose Jesus as one of them. So a lot of younger believers thought that if they ate this meat that was sacrificed to an idol, they were actually choosing that idol and Jesus was going to abandon them and Jesus was going to excommunicate them and kick them out of his family, because that’s how all the gods acted.
And Paul is saying listen, that’s not reality, that’s not the truth. So they were thinking if I eat to this idol, that means I’m worshiping it. Jesus is going to be angry with me and I haven’t been loyal, so then I’m going to go to hell. That’s what they’re thinking. He says. But food does not commend us to God, for neither if we eat we are better, nor if we don’t eat are we worse. So again, we should all know the truth and understand that we aren’t in any danger at all. Jesus has completely saved us. Nothing can take us from his hand, even our own dumb decisions. And notice, he says neither choice makes you more spiritual than the other. And this is the point where most Christians stumble in this issue of Christian liberty.
So you have things such as movies Okay, are you going to go see rated R movies? No, never. What about Passion of the Christ? Well, that one’s okay. Okay. What about drinking? If I drink this or that, does it make me unspiritual, unholy? What about music? Can I listen to anything and everything? What about television? Can I watch anything? Or everything? I know in my mind and in my life there are certain things that I should not do. I know that I’m free. Okay, if I watch all the things, I’m not going to hell. You can do it,
you are free. That is the grace of Jesus. It was very expensive grace. It’s not cheap grace. It cost him his very blood, but his blood is worth so much.
He says you are 100% free, but how do you handle that truth? I know I’m free to watch whatever I want, but my wife and I have talked a lot about things that we watch and don’t watch, and it would harm our relationship greatly if I chose to watch certain things, like things that have nudity in them. That would harm our relationship. So I choose, because of love, to lay down my freedom, because I love my wife and I know it would hurt her and it would honestly mess up my own thoughts. That’s what this is all about. Are you free? Yeah, you’re free, but use your freedom for love. If you’re using your freedom for selfishness, that could lead you to sin and then, even further, it could harm other people, and that’s not even being a reflection at all of the love that God’s given to you. It’s destroying that witness.
So here’s what’s wrong. A lot of people will then take their stance and impose it on everybody else. I just told you my stance on one thing you have to make your decision of how you’re going to live your life. I’m not going to tell you what to do at all, but I will tell you what you do shows love for other people or disregard for other people. That’s how you need to make your decisions, because that’s grace Loving other people.
Putting them first is humility. That’s how you need to make your decisions, because that’s grace Loving other people. Putting them first is humility. That’s walking in the spirit, not here’s the rules. Don’t do them, because I could easily just stand up here and say you know what? Here’s the rule? Don’t ever do this and don’t ever do that, and don’t let me see you doing this either, and then you’ll have life.
But if I do that, I’m not walking in the gospel and the freedom. I’m using law to try to grow you and transform you and protect you, and that’s not going to work. So he says beware lest somehow this liberty of yours becomes a stumbling block to those who are weak. So, yes, you are free, but some people are weak, which means they need the temporary support of some guidelines to grow into maturity in their confidence in Jesus. So we need to let love be more important to us than our freedoms. Instead of mocking them for their silly lives and their silly choices, we should come alongside them to show them that they are loved and that they’re valuable and that they are free. But yet this is how to use our freedom is love.
So if you want to handle the truth, what you do is you love other people. So it goes on. It says for if anyone sees you have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of him, who is weak, be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died. But when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat. L if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
So Paul here gives the personal application of how to apply this principle. If you know the truth, we are free because we’re loved. You need to apply that in your interaction to others with love. You can’t just know the truth and focus on yourself. Yes, you’re free, but the love that loved you now needs to flow out to other people who are weak and struggling and need to know how much God loves them. And that’s the wise way to live, is what he’s saying.
So you’ve been loved. That’s how you started your relationship with God. He unconditionally loved you Without you earning love when you were still a sinner. Christ died for you. That’s how your relationship with God is based. That’s everything in your relationship with God how much he loved you. Did you earn any of that? Did you deserve any of that? Then don’t try to get other people to live as though they have to earn it or they have to deserve it. Offer them love, because what you do matters. God was patient with you, so be patient with others, because what you do in your life matters. Your life matters so much Because you are the only Bible that some people will read. You’re the only testimony of the love of Christ that some people will ever hear. The way you treat them, the way you lift them up, the way you value them, your life matters. God has placed you in this year, in this state, in this town, in these people, for you to be his love letter to them, every single one of you. That is your purpose, your divine purpose, your life purpose. Don’t be a letter telling people God is more concerned with their performance than their life, their performance of the law than their hearts. Your life matters the way you treat people.
You can cause your brother to stumble by focusing on yourself instead of how your actions affect them, by treating them as if they’re less important, by not coming alongside them to teach them the way of freedom, that we are free, and instead just throwing that freedom in their face, saying, well, I’m free to do whatever I want. Some might say okay, I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t care, because I don’t want my life to be restricted by thinking about other people first because I got to get mine. I want what’s important to me. I got to take care of myself first, because if I’m not taking care of me, who is? That’s what I’ve learned in this world. It’s a cruel world, it’s a hard world. If I’m not taking
care of me, no one else is. And I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that.
God is you don’t believe in God’s love for you and that’s why you’re such a bitter, angry, self-focused person to other people, because you think you have to earn your way. You think you have to prove yourself. You think you have to be this, become this, prove this Instead of understanding what Jesus has done for you, instead of understanding what Jesus has done for you. I don’t want my life to be restricted by having to think about other people’s first, but Jesus said. He taught us that you won’t find life in serving yourself. You will never find life in trying to take care of your own needs, in trying to be all about yourself, in making yourself your own priority. Jesus said that will never lead to life.
In Matthew, chapter 16, 25,. He said if you try to hang on to your life, if you seek your life, you will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. If you give up your life for my sake, you’ll save it. It doesn’t mean you have to lay your life on a train track. It means stop worrying about your priorities. Let God bless you with life. He’s promised to do that. That’s literally what Jesus said.
He said Jesus became. He was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor. That through his poverty you might become rich, in 2 Corinthians 8, 9. That through his poverty you might become rich in 2 Corinthians 8, 9. And so he says his entire desire is to transfer his abundant living life, his grace-filled life, his happy life, his joyful life. He wants to transfer it and put it inside you. That’s his entire purpose. But we shortcut it, we disconnect ourselves from it when we think about ourselves first. That’s what we do and Jesus is like guys, I love you and just let me show you. Do you know that the love of God’s grace has been lavished on you? God’s grace has been lavished on you. Here’s how you can prove what you believe Live your life to love others and lift them up, instead of being self-centered and pride and self-pleasing.
If you’re filled with the truth, let your life show that you handle his truth with love. Show that you handle His truth with love. The truth is, his love lives through us. His love lives in you. That’s what the Holy Spirit is. Have you ever heard? God is love. The Holy Spirit is God. So God’s love is in you. In Romans 5.5, it says that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is literally just doing a constant blood transfusion into your heart, pumping into your heart a new blood. That is His love, just pumping his love through your veins at every moment. He wants you to know it, live in it, but then also let it live through you. So the key word for today is let, let him live through you. Let him live through you. In order to do that, you have to know His love, you have to believe His love, amen, amen. That’s 1 Corinthians, chapter 8. You all now know it. Go and live it.