Word of Salvation – Vol.45 No.27 – July 2000
Privilege: No Guarantee
Sermon by Rev J W Westendorp on 1Corinthians 10:1-5
Scripture Readings: Exodus 14:15-31; 1Corinthians 9:24 – 10:13
Suggested Hymns: BoW 63; 191; 465; 177
Theme: Privileged Israel with all its sacramental blessings fell in the wilderness so becoming a warning for us.
Introd: What does it take to be a Christian?
I spoke to a young lady who claimed that she was a Christian…
because (in her words) “Australia is a Christian country…!
“And doesn’t that automatically make you a Christian…?”
“Unless, of course, you deliberately choose to be something else.”
You’ve probably met people who considered themselves Christians
simply because they have always tried to do the right thing by everybody.
As someone once said about a friend who had died,
“He was a good Christian bloke because he never did nobody no harm!”
What does it take to be a Christian?
In the chapter just before our text Paul says that it’s hard work being a Christian.
He spoke of it as a race…. as a boxer competing for a prize.
In fact Paul mentions the awful possibility of being disqualified.
That awesome possibility of the athlete who gives it all he’s got.
Straining every muscle to the point of exhaustion.
And then finding that he’s been disqualified.
And so here is Paul who has coached so many others in the race
saying that he himself must strive… battle… run with the perseverance.
What does it take to be a Christian?
It takes the kind of effort that a marathon runner puts into reaching the finish line.
If you think you’ll get there just because you live a decent life then you are in for a big shock.
If you think you’ll make it because you have Christian parents then you need to think again.
If you think you have to do no more than believe a few things the Bible teaches… then look out!
Paul says: it is running race… struggling for the prize… beating one’s body into submission.
Then just to make sure we get the point he tells us about Israel who thought they were doing fine.
A history lesson… to drive home that the Christian life is not a luxury cruise to glory.
A] COVENANT PRIVILEGES ENJOYED.
- Paul lists some of the great privileges the people of Israel enjoyed as the special people of God.
They had a ‘most favoured nation’ status with God.
Notice, there are five things that Paul says about them.
First of all he relates how these early ancestors were all under a cloud.
That cloud was no ordinary cloud… it was a cloud in which God was present.
During the day it provided shade from blistering desert heat.
During the night this supernatural cloud glowed with light.
God’s glory shone out of it in a burning fire.
And always it guided and directed them.
When it moved… they moved… when it stopped… they stopped.
That cloud was an ever-present sign of the very presence of the Lord.
And all the Israelites… all without exception, enjoyed the privilege of living under the cloud.
Living under the intimate presence and guidance of God.
A second wonderful privilege that the whole nation shared in was that miraculous sea crossing.
God had parted the waters and they had passed through the Red Sea on dry land.
That event would be imprinted on their minds forever.
When everything had seemed hopeless… God did the impossible.
He not only provided a way of escape for the people of Israel…
But their very avenue of escape became the road of destruction for the pursuing enemy.
And again… every Israelite… all without exception…
walked along the bottom of the seabed
and watched the waves drown Pharaoh and his army.
In fact Paul says that all this really boiled down to a third privilege.
This being under the cloud, day by day…
And this passing through the sea… was like a kind of baptism.
The guidance of the cloud and the passing through the water
showed they were now cut-off from the old way of life in Egypt
and had been ushered into a new way of life as people of God.
If you like – it was an initiation into that most privileged position.
The ‘favoured nation’ status… the people of God’s own choice.
Baptised, as it were into Moses, in the cloud and in the sea.
And once again that had happened to all of them without exception.
As though all of that was not enough… God also miraculously provided food for them.
Every morning there lay on the ground a supernatural food.
The manna… special bread sent from God. Every morning a new miracle.
And they all… all without exception ate this supernatural food.
All of them enjoyed that provision God made for them.
And then when they were thirsty in that barren, dry wilderness…
God split the rock and the water poured out of it for them.
Another miracle of God’s care and God’s provision.
And then Paul makes the observation that the rock from which they drank was Christ.
And that’s really the most amazing privilege of all.
Israel in the wilderness…
and accompanying their every move was the Christ who was to come…
He was already there. And He himself was quenching their thirst.
And there was not one Israelite in all that time who had not drunk from that Rock.
All drank! All were provided for!
- Now it’s all very nice to think of all these marvellous privileges Israel enjoyed.
It may well impress us how much God did for them over and over again.
But if you stop there, you’ll miss the point.
Paul is saying this to the Corinthian Christians… to the New Testament Church.
IOW: if you think that what God did for Israel was pretty awesome…
Then just remind yourself of the marvellous things God has done for you….
Stop a moment and count some of the most important blessings you enjoy.
Okay, Israel had the cloud to guide and protect them.
But on the New Testament Church God has poured out His spirit.
And the Spirit leads… and guides… and protects the Church today….
just as surely and just as adequately as the cloud guided and protected Israel.
And all of us in the Church have come under that ‘cloud’…
In the church we are within the sphere of the operation of the Holy Spirit.
And if the opening of the Red Sea seems a miraculous and astonishing deliverance…
If that blows us away then we need to ask:
Hasn’t God provided a far more wonderful deliverance for us?
In Jesus Christ God Himself laid down His life… God Himself suffered humiliation.
God Himself felt excruciating pain… and then died…
He did that to rescue us from a far more powerful enemy than an earthly king.
And that way of salvation is open to every one of us.
Every one of us is invited to embrace the crucified Christ.
Israel was Baptised into Moses in the cloud and the sea.
A wonderful initiation into a privileged position!
And yet Moses… that Old Testament saviour figure with whom they were united…
whom they had been privileged to be baptised into…
died with them in the wilderness.
We were Baptised into something far more wonderful.
The baptism we experienced points to the cleansing of Christ by His blood and Spirit.
And all of us were initiated into the privileges of the gospel of Christ.
Into the community of One who is a far greater Saviour than Moses.
They ate of the manna… they drank water from the rock.
But Jesus offers us Himself… the bread of life… the water of life…!
And that offer is open to us all.
Israel’s privileges were great.
But I want to remind you that your privileges are far, far greater.
What they enjoyed was real enough.
All God’s wonderful provisions, materially and spiritually.
And yet, in a way… what they enjoyed was really only a foreshadowing…
a foretaste of what was yet to come and what the Church today enjoys.
Today we are the favoured people of God.
Today we need to impress again on our minds how blessed we are.
We have been initiated into the position of privilege by baptism.
And in the Church the Lord holds out to us again and again…
all the joys and privileges of His presence…
His guidance… His blessings… His saving love… His day-by-day care for us.
All of that is freely available to us…
And for as long as we wander through this life as the people of God.
B] COVENANT PRIVILEGES FORFEITED.
- At this point we need to keep in mind that the apostle doesn’t just want to list the privileges.
He’s not highlighting the favoured treatment of Israel…
just to drive home the fact that God’s people are special.
Paul has another reason. He is using all this simply as an illustration.
An illustration to remind us that being a Christian is not an easy thing.
It is not just a matter of sitting back and lapping up all God’s favours.
In fact, what he really wants to do is to convince us
that all the privileges in the world
are not in themselves going to guarantee us that it will all work out right in the end.
No…! Being a Christian is a struggle… a fight… a marathon race.
Notice the contrast in these verses:
Five times Paul speaks of something happening to all.
All of them were under that wonderfully miraculous cloud.
All of them passed through the sea to safety.
All of them were the Baptised into Moses.
All of them ate the manna… the supernatural bread.
All of them drank the miraculous supply of water.
All of these privileges were freely available to all the people.
But then comes the crunch: nevertheless…!
Nevertheless… God was not pleased with most of them.
What a tragedy… five times “all” and then that word “most”.
Most of them never made it into the Promised Land.
Their bodies were scattered over the desert.
Why did that happen?
How come that people who had experienced so much… who had been so privileged…
should still fail to receive the ultimate blessing still to come…
Entry into the land that God wanted to give them?
These people had seen so much… experienced so much… all of them!
Yet most of them never got there. Why?
Elsewhere in the Bible we are told that most of them missed out because of unbelief…
Because they lacked faith.
That seems strange doesn’t it?
How is it possible that a person can watch the sea being parted…
– can see every day again the mysterious cloud of God’s presence…
– can go out every morning to collect her share of manna…
– can drink from a rock that opens up in the dry desert…
experience all that, and still be unbelieving…?
Precisely because faith is not a matter of a comfortable seat on an express train to heaven.
Faith is a fight… faith is a running a race.
And most of those people were not prepared for that that sort of commitment.
They became complacent, proud of their privileges and of their favoured position.
They took it all for granted… and they died in the wilderness.
The verses that follow tell us where they went wrong.
There was idolatry… there was immorality… there was rebellion.
They gloried in their favoured position and expected to be able to call the shots.
They were saying: “Ha! We’ve been initiated into the covenant community.”
“We’re the people of God!”
And they thought that that gave them a licence to do as they pleased.
Even to make demands on God.
And there was no struggle… and there was no running the race.
- Paul says that all these things happened so as to provide us with an example.
In vs.11 he tells us that these things were written down in scripture as a warning for us.
History… and especially the history of Israel is to teach us a lesson.
The lesson that you and I have to learn every day again…
that God doesn’t just give us a lots of privileges so that we can sit back and coast along.
We have to learn that the Christian faith is not just some kind of eternal life insurance policy….
to make sure that we get there regardless of what we do.
No! Privilege brings with it responsibility.
The responsibility to fight the good fight of faith.
Keep in mind to whom Paul was writing these things.
He was writing to the Corinthian Church.
Here was a Church that enjoyed all the privileges of the gospel of Christ.
And yet they thought that sexual freedom, even incest was commendable.
A Church that had the favoured position of being blessed by Word and Sacrament.
but where drunkenness and gluttony were treated as a big joke.
History… Israel’s history… was to be a lesson for the Corinthians.
And this morning it is to be a lesson to us.
By and large we have all been Baptised… we all have the Word of God…
We all have the offer of forgiveness and eternal life.
And in some sense it is true that all we have to do to receive all those privileges
is simply to believe in Jesus the Son of God, our Saviour…
Then we already have one foot in the Promised Land.
But if you are counting on the privileges of your baptism…
Or on the favoured position of being part of the people of God…
If you are counting on the privileges offered by Christ…
And at the same time thumbing your nose at God and His commands to live a holy life
then despite your baptism and despite your church involvement
You will be like those who fell in the wilderness.
With whom God was not pleased.
Then you are only proving the absence of true faith in your life.
Five times there is the word all.
And then those terrible words: Nevertheless… with most of them God was not pleased.
All of them came so close.
All of them enjoyed so many blessings and privileges.
Yet, the tragedy is that so few of them made it across the Jordan.
Where does that leave you today, my brother… my sister?
Sometimes we hear of someone who makes a long trip…
and then when they are almost home there is a tragic accident…
killed on the road…. but only a little way from home.
What a tragedy to be shipwrecked within sight of the harbour.
What a tragedy to be a member of a church and to go regularly to worship…
to be baptised and to hear the Word… and yet… to perish eternally.
Please don’t find your security in your baptism… or in your regular partaking of Lord’s Supper.
Please don’t find your confidence in that you are a part of a church fellowship.
Find you security only in Jesus Christ…!
And then work at your faith… strive hard… run the race to make your calling and election certain.
Amen.