Christian freedom

The Corinthian Church: A Study in Factions and Disorder

The Corinthian church—that's not where I'm preaching from today, but the Corinthian church was a bit of a mess. If you read the letter of 1 Corinthians, Paul is addressing all sorts of things going on in the church.

Very early on, we see factions beginning to develop among the people. Some say, "Well, I was baptized by Apollos." Others say, "Well, I was baptized by Paul." It was as if different theological schools were forming with different convictions, and everyone said, "I believe these kinds of things, so we're over here. We got baptized by Apollos, so we hold to this." Paul goes, "What are you talking about? We're on the same team. We believe the same things." Paul has to bring this correction, but the division continues throughout his letter.

Next, we find an argument about spiritual gifts. People want to exercise their gifts, and when everyone comes into the church, it turns into a circus. Everyone wants to give their prophecy, their interpretation, their word from the Lord, or their revelation. People are speaking all over the place. Everybody wants their moment in the spotlight to exercise their gifting and spiritual freedom as they feel led. But it causes division and chaos. Ego gets involved, tearing things apart. Pretty soon, people who aren't outspoken begin to wonder if they even belong. You have an over-exercising of freedom—expression that doesn't consider the people right around them.

Navigating Personal Convictions and Christian Liberty

Then other convictions play out, like food sacrificed to idols. In the early church, buying meat in the marketplace was almost like going to a restaurant that had offered that food to Apollos or another god in the Roman Empire. You could buy it, take it home, and eat it.

Divisions arose because some bought the meat and ate it, while others said, "Whoa, hold on. That was sacrificed to a god!" Some Christians said, "That doesn't matter. I don't worship that god. That god isn't even real. What's the big deal? I'm just eating the meat." Others said, "There's a principle about it. It doesn't feel right." The first group responded, "I don't care what you think. I'm just going to do what I want to do."

Paul says, "Whoa, hold on. You need to consider the convictions of other people. You're causing them to have to accept your convictions, encroaching and enforcing that standard. You're judging and shaming them because their conscience is more sensitive."

The Ripple Effect of Individualism

Today, we're going to look at the exercise of Christian freedom. What does it mean to live out Christian freedom in our lives?

We love freedom in America—land of the free, home of the brave. But the belief in our culture today about freedom is: I can do anything I want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. What we often don't realize is that our actions are like ripples in a pond. Your actions don't exist in a vacuum; they make an impact on the people around you.

Whether it's images you view on the internet thinking, "Nobody knows, it doesn't hurt anybody," you don't realize you perpetuate demand for an industry that enslaves people, promotes sin, and damages families, men, and women. Or in our individualism, we think the good life is moving to a beach, doing our own thing, and not bothering anyone. You don't realize how removing yourself from a community impacts others. You might be removing yourself from family, friendships, or a local church where you were needed at the table—needed to disciple someone, make a meal for someone sick, or speak a word of life to someone who needed to hear it that morning.

Our actions matter. How we exercise freedom matters. Even within the church, exercising freedom and convictions without consideration for those around us becomes damaging. We argue about carpet colors, politics, or secondary theological issues like baptism. There are heels to die on—essential Christian truths we must agree on—but on secondary issues, we shouldn't flex our opinions, judge, or be harsh. As Christ wants, we ought to strive for unity despite diverse perspectives. Christian freedom learns to submit and seek the good of your brother and sister.

Scripture Reading: Jesus Submits to the Temple Tax

Today, we're going to see Jesus doing something remarkable. Jesus knows how to fight the good fight, but today He actually submits.

Our text today is Matthew 17:24–27. We've been working our way through chapter 17, where Peter declared Jesus as the Son of God. Then we read:

"When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, 'Does your teacher not pay the tax?' He said, 'Yes.' And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, 'What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tax? From the sons or from others?' And he said, 'From others.' Jesus said to him, 'Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.'"— This is God's word.

The Historical Context of the Temple Tax

This text begins with a question asked of Peter: "Does your teacher pay the temple tax?" This tax was charged annually for the sacrifices and upkeep of the temple. It had historical roots in the Book of Exodus, where Moses ordained a tax to be taken once during a census for every male 20 years and older. A census was rare—maybe once or twice in a lifetime.

Fast-forward to the Book of Nehemiah after the exile: returning to the temple, there wasn't enough money to maintain it. Nehemiah established an annual contribution so the few thousand people present could sustain temple operations long-term.

Fast-forward 500 years to Jesus' day. Millions of people are now in the land, contributing annually. Calculations estimate the tax brought in tens of millions of dollars every year—far more than necessary. Theological debates arose; groups like the Essenes and Sadducees argued they should follow Exodus rather than the annual model. Culturally, however, failing to contribute looked unpatriotic and un-Jewish.

Recognizing Your True Freedom in Christ

This is what Jesus is faced with, and the posture He takes matters. How do we exercise Christian freedom?

The first way is by recognizing your freedom—realizing you are not a slave to the old life. Jesus asks Peter, "From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tax? From the sons or from others?" Any king collects money for their empire and palace from conquered people or subjects, not from their own sons living in the house. Since Jesus is the Son of God, He is exempt from paying tax for His Father's house.

Furthermore, when Jesus says, "Then the sons are free," He has in mind making us true sons and daughters of God. Through His blood, He reconciles us to Himself, freeing us from trying to measure up through a religious system. That old system was a temporary shadow pointing to the eternal Lamb who sets us free once and for all.

That's not freedom. That's slavery. And the great thing that Jesus wants us to understand, wants is that you are free. You are free of that kind of system. You're going to be and in essence he's pointing forward already. You're going to be free of a kind of system of measuring up. If you do not understand that, if you do not understand the radical concept of the gospel, the radical grace of God, which says you do not do enough to measure up, you're never going to be able to atone for your sins. And you know this, you're never going to do it. You can't outdo your good with your bad and try to like create some sort of formula. You need something to purify you. And those animals aren't enough. You got to do that all the time every year. And so Christ came and fully and finally and perfectly and wholly paid for our sins. And in down in our depths, if you really think about that, you and I both know there's just things in our life you go, I think God has probably forgiven me of like 80 or 90%. But man, if he knew that that thing or those couple of things, we act like God doesn't know. I mean, if he I don't think that count. I don't think I think I still need to I need to measure up. I need to I need to like put my tax my contribution in and then we get over the finish line. That is not the gospel. That is not the teaching of scripture because then you're saying Christ's blood is not fully sufficient and that his grace is not fully sufficient. Is that what we're saying? That's what we sometimes believe. But Jesus wants to free us of the temple tax, of the contribution in our own life. We're like, I'm trying to like just do that little bit to get that last 10%. And that's not the gospel. And when you truly finally understand the gospel, when you truly understand that you are forgiven, that God loves you, that he has paid the debt for your sin, it blows our mind. I mean, it's just it's unfathomable to think about that. And when you finally get it, what do we feel? Well, we feel a level of unworthiness. A level of like, ah, this just this doesn't make mathematical sense because no religion on the planet teaches that. All the other religions that make are different from Christianity because they teach this. You do something, you do your good works or whatever. You measure up and then you get Nirvana or whatever it is. You keep the five pillars of Islam. You keep the four noble truths of Buddhism. You do those kinds of things and then you might get salvation at the end of the day. That's not what the gospel teaches. That's radical. And when we get it and we feel so unworthy, what's it do to you? It frees you and there's joy in receiving that. And there's gratitude. Gratitude to the God who like don't deserve this. And I you knew he knows he knows that thing and yet he still forgave me and he still loved me and he still sent his son to die for me. And that's radical and that's beautiful. and all of my life begins to be free, but be free in a way that's directed to him that says, "I want to live for you. I want to please you like you did all this for me." And I just feel this life that constantly lives not to earn something, but in response to what Christ has done for you. That's the gospel. Do you believe the gospel? Is he your Lord? And if you do not have it, you can have it today. The Lord offers it to you today. And if you need to have questions about that or need to hear that more, please come and see me. I'd love to talk to you about it because it changes life and it will free you from sin, from guilt, from shame, from bondage, from all of those kinds of things. There's a supernatural thing that happens in life. When we finally get that message and receive it from God, it's supernatural power that comes over us that frees us to live a life of response and worship and glory to Christ. But that freedom that freedom is powerful. But the key is to rightly use that freedom to rightly use that freedom. And we do that by the second thing. Understand the conviction of others. Understanding. So Jesus knows these guys that are collecting the tax. He already knows their conviction. He knows what theological camp they belong to. You know where they sort of hold conviction on this. And yet Jesus um Jesus understands that and yet he pauses to think about this in a sense. He could he could take up controversy. He could walk out of that house and say, "You know what? I'm going to set the record straight. I don't pay that temple tax." Jesus knows how to stir up controversy. He knows. But he looks at this and this isn't a moral issue. This isn't one of those like essential issues because if it is, Jesus knows how to correct those things. He realizes like they're not I don't think they're ready yet to understand all that is coming, all the change that's about to happen, all the things that I'm going to accomplish. And it's important for him to understand and to have a sense of of of of understanding. We need to understand the conviction of others. You can exercise your Christian freedom in such a way and and not have understanding or awareness for the other people or not care for what the other people around you think and just sort of run over people and you leave awake in life behind you of all the destruction and the carnage of people that you just sort of stepped over as you did what you wanted to do. That's what's happening in the Corinthian church. The people are exercising their freedom and just rolling over people. But Jesus realizes that even though he's exempt from the temple tax, he could make that case, right? And uh and also the fact that he knows the temple's going away and all this system is is going to be done away, that he's going to fulfill it in some new in a new and whole way. He doesn't do that. He understands their conviction and his response because this is a second order issue is not going to be to take up issue to steamroll over people but to practice a level of graciousness and truth because he understands the conviction and his goal his aim is not to create barriers to his ultimate mission to the coming kingdom to the message of the kingdom and the preaching of the gospel. And sometimes it has to force on those essential issues so that you correct the error. But here he wants to keep the the he wants to keep the avenues open in order to do that. And like I said, we can be uncsensitive to the convictions of other people in our life and we can have varying convictions and that's okay. It's okay to have the liberty of that. But do be considerate of your brothers and sisters and they may have different convictions. And doesn't mean that we need to shame them or rebuke them on these things. We need to have conversations with them. We need to understand one another. We need to be gracious to one another. That's what we see happening here. We need to ultimately practice love and whether it be on issues of drinking or Sabbath or entertainment or baptism or any other variety of things. That, by the way, is why as a church, we practice because we're non-denominational, we practice a level of that charity. We have some essentials. We have some heels. We have to agree about the gospel. We have to agree about God's word. We have to agree about Christ. We have to agree about our doctrine of God, our doctrines of sin. We have to agree about those kinds of things. Those are non-negotiables. But there's a lot of other areas where we just get caught up in this world and we can begin to look like the world. divided us under, flexing our freedom to the hurt of other people and just rolling past them. And I've seen this in churches where some people, whether it's in the way that they want to worship or or express, you can kind of think if somebody all of a sudden grabbed a flag and started running around in here, you know, it kind of be like the Corinthian church where it's that exercise of freedom that creates either distraction or division or sometimes people feel like, well, maybe I'm not spiritual enough. I'm not waving a flag. Maybe what? And it just creates things that are not helpful. And I'm not saying if you wave a flag. I realize there's some churches that do that. It's okay. Um but you have to think about the context you are in. And you have to think about the convictions of the people around you and where they're at. And so with our eye on that and that's what Paul that's what Paul does in 1 Corinthians by the way. You know that you know the fact chapter 13 which so many of you love to hear at weddings, right? That that beautiful if you're not you know I'm I don't have it memorized. I probably should but you know 1 Corinthians 3. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but you know, um, love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, does not boast, it is not arrogant. You know that passage, that's not made for weddings, by the way. The Corinthian church is about to tear apart because of all of this expression of freedom. And there's more of it. I didn't even talk about all the different things that are going on at the table and all the other areas where there's divisions and factions and people flexing their freedom all over the place and and and they're going to fail and the church is going to blow up and they're not going to be a symbol to the to the culture around them and people are going to be fragmented and hurt. There's going to be this wake of carnage there already is. And so Paul writes 1 Corinthians 13 because he has to show the church the way forward. He has to show them that by loving and by truly loving someone, you serve. You seek their good. You understand them. And you learn to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things. Love endures.

And as a church, as the people of God, we're called to understand and look at our brothers and sisters and be gracious. Understand their convictions. You know, the way that I love it, this is an old saying. I didn't invent this and some of you have heard it before. In uni, in essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity. That's worth repeating. In essentials, unity. in non-essentials liberty and in all things like Paul says in first Corinthians charity.

Next thing we see here is the submit submitting your freedom. So how do we exercise our freedom? We by recognizing our freedom by understanding the conviction of others and being aware and now by submitting our freedom. Jesus chooses not to unnecessarily offend. Why? Well, we see right here in this text, it says um he says uh verse 26, "And when Peter said, from others, Jesus said to him, then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the fish out that comes up and when you open its mouth, you will find a shekele. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself." So, he says right here is the keys. He says, "However, not to give offense to them." That word in the Greek is scondalizo and it can mean offense. It can mean to cause somebody to stumble, to trip them up. And sometimes our words and our actions and our way of living or our freedom and our exercise of things like that or even here if Jesus responds and says, you know what, I'm not going to pay the tax. I'm going to take up issue right here. Then it will cause some people to stumble. Now, the goal isn't, you know, sometimes you got to trip people up because you need to help them see the gospel for the you need to pause them. You need to correct errors on essential things. But again, this is a secondary issue. Jesus is going to do something remarkable. The son of God, the one who says, "Look, if anybody is exempt from this tax, it's me. I'm the priest of all. I'm definitely exempt from this tax. That's my dad's house right there." And yet he doesn't play that card. And he doesn't try to corre correct their theology or get caught into the theological debate of the day or say, "You know what? The Sadducees and the Essins are right. you guys are got it all wrong. He doesn't do any of that. He doesn't want to cause offense or stumbling. So, he submits his own sort of convictions for the good of those guys because it keeps their ears. And if by doing that, see, because it's such a national identity, if he takes up issue here, he's probably going to make most of Israel just angry at him. Jesus ain't patriotic. How dare him. What's he doing? I mean that that's what's going to spread rampantly throughout and then his message begins to fail. It doesn't go out because all the people can think of is they've already labeled him. They've already decided who he is. He's that guy that's unpatriotic that doesn't pay the temple tax. Doesn't want to be part of that. And Jesus doesn't want to create that kind of division, that kind of stumbling. And why? Because he has a main miss mission and a main message that he's promoting. and he realizes this is not the battle or the place to die on that hill for it. Freedom isn't to do what we want to do, but to do what is good in God's eyes. The exercise of our Christian freedom isn't just to do whatever you want to do. Whatever feels good to you the way you want to do. As long as it doesn't break the law or anything like that, I'm okay. But it's actually to do what's good and right in God's eyes. Galatians 5:13 reminds us, "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through l love serve one another." See, if you just exercise the freedom you want with no eye on what God wants or no eye on your brothers and sisters and how to best care for them, then you begin to just live the kind of life that got you into this mess in the first place. I'm going to do what I want. I'm going to be I'm free now. I can do what I want. And it just enslaves you to something else in life, another idol, another way of life. Jesus comes to make us free. And the greatest freedom is when we bow our knee to him and find that we're truly free. We all serve something. But somehow, ironically, when we serve Christ, we're the freest of all. Free of the religious systems of trying to measure up. Free of sin. Free indeed. True freedom seeks the good and the service of others. 1 Corinthians 10:24 says, "Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor." This is where Paul is talking about that controversy with with uh the food that sacrificed to idols. You got this division and he's trying to help them seek the good of your neighbor. He goes on to say in in later in the chapter there he says, "So whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or the church of God as I try to please everyone and everything. I do not seek my own advantage but of many that they may all be saved. So even here Jesus Paul is modeling what Jesus does. You of these secondary things like this we're going to seek Christian unity. We're going to exercise our freedom for the way of our good of our brother and sister. We're going to even sometimes submit our own like I can do what I want. We're going to submit those things ultimately for the good and for the love and for the care of our brother and sister. And that's what we always have to have in mind. We can be a church of people who are diverse and yet together because we are united in the gospel. One faith, one hope, one Lord, one baptism. We should know the areas where we need to believe and agree and the areas where we should be gracious to one another, kind, forgiving, gentle. Um, finally, one more. Don't allow your freedom to trip others up. We see Romans 14:13 where Paul says, "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires." Um, finally, just one last little piece here that we see in the passage. What I just thought was interesting in this exercise is Jesus tell sends Peter out to get fish fishing, pulls the metal, you know, the the silver out of the fish's mouth. And then he doesn't just pay his own tax, he pays Peter's tax. Jesus pays the amount not just for himself, but for Peter. And I think in this that we see something where Jesus, well, we don't know what Peter Peter apparently had not paid the tax yet. And I think there's something here where Jesus also reminds us that we should call and exhort our brother and sister to exercise their freedom, but to do it in a way that honors God. And there will be times in the church where we maybe come alongside our brothers and sisters, maybe like Paul did when there were disagreements in the church, and to remind one another to seek unity, to submit to one another in love and in Christ as he calls us to do, and to not leave a wake of carnage. And you know what I have seen in churches at times? I have seen in places where there have been individuals who exercised freedom and they were leaving a wake of people that were hurt and wounded behind them and no one said anything. No one came behind beside them just lovingly and graciously and said, "Hey, this is not the right way to exercise your freedom. This is not God-honoring in any way." And there were consequences for that. If we don't get this, and I don't just mean us in the room, but I mean even the church of Christ, the the big church, the universal church. If we don't get this and shine this and and display this, we won't use our freedom to serve God and to serve others. We'll serve oursel and we'll leave all sorts of carnage behind us. You'll cause unnecessary offense to others and it won't honor God. Christians should set the standard for the right use of freedom. There should be a beautiful community of people who are different. And yet, you know, in our world, when you're different means you need to divide. You can't be friends. Not here. Not in God's house. Not in among God's people. That's the beauty of the church is we can be a different people. Diverse, different backgrounds, different ages. I love even looking across this room. I have prayed that God grows us in all kind of other ways diversity-wise and yet still have one Lord, one faith, one hope, one baptism so that we do not become like the ch church of Corenth. We become the the church that God has called us to be, loving one another. And as I said, in essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity. Let's pray.

Lord, we just thank you for this beautiful, surprising illustration that we see in your life here as we read this text. Even myself just noticing here in these just few little verses something so remarkable about how you as the son of God and we know this from Philippians 2. You came to submit yourself to be willing to even die to die on a cross and even here on some sort of smaller theological be piece instead of exerting your rights and your freedom and even your theological rightness. You didn't cause offense. You were gracious here to them because you had a bigger plan. I like to think that you led them eventually to the cross and helped some of these guys even see that they truly were free and how to rightly exercise that freedom. Lord, teach us that. Give us a heart of unity, of peace. Help us to use our freedom in a way that honors and glorifies you so that we may become the sons and the daughters of God that you've called us to be for your glory and your honor alone. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.