In the ancient days in countries like Greece, Egypt and even Italy, the gods they created to worship was severely flawed at best.
In Greek mythodology it was the images of their creations was in the form of humans; that is, their gods had many human qualities even though they were gods. The gods constantly fought among themselves, behaved irrationally and unfairly, and were often jealous of each other. Zeus, the king of the gods, was rarely faithful to his wife Hera. Hera plotted against Zeus and punished his mistresses.
The Greek gods were highly emotional and behaved inconsistently and sometimes immorally. Greek religion did not have a standard set of morals, there were no Judaic Ten Commandments. The gods, heroes, and humans of Greek mythology were flawed.
In Egypt, their gods had similar attributes but was more significant to their behaviors and actions that would suggestly save them.
How would it be, to serve a living God that was stingy, miserly, tight fisted with all that the deity wanted to give. Be constantly irrational, unfair and even favor feelings more than truth! How would it be to serve a God like that?
One thing friends we must get out of our heads that the great ‘I Am’ is not like any of those examples! As a matter of fact, God delights in favoring his children as we see time and time again, delights in extending blessings and mercy with showers of grace and good, but, there is a small catch to it. We have to present to God withour requests (Prov. 3:1-4)
IN todays reading in 1 Corinthians, Paul was writing to the Corinthians here as a testimony to help save them. Corintha was a very prominent and important city in the Greek state of Achaia, it was a rich area, but also very immoral.
Corinthia was a city known in the age of that time, that everyone knew about. If you said something like “If you lived like a Corinthian” for example, most everyone knew exactly what that meant. It was another way of saying the people indulged themselves wildly and without self-control.
In todays modern world, even in ancient times of Paul, there is a balanced distinction between liberty and license, between what is lawful and what is not! If there would be a better or more clear distinction of a yes means yes and no means not, would we be better off today?
So starting off with Pauls statement in 1 Corinthians “All things are lawful…” gives the impression that physical acts do NOT affect the inner man. Do you believe that? Absolutely NOT!
So when something is lawful, its not illegal per-say right? If the speed limit is 70, and your going over that, is that unlawful? If you verbally or physically abuse someone, is that unlawful? If you come to a pond that says “No Swimming”, but you see someone drowning, do you obey the law or save the person?
How about this, if you saw someone do you wrong initially and wrongfully which caused you great and significant harm, should you forgive? It is written, YES!
So many questions comes to the mind, but yet, we tend to not look and see what God’s answers are! We tend to reflect on our ‘feelings’, ‘emotions’, what we think to be true.
What are we missing here in life?
Why is the so common attitude ‘I will do what I want and when I want’ seem to be on the rise in our world? Why are we so wrapped in a world that wants instant gratification, I want my hamburger now! This is fast food restaurant isn’t it? Now Now Now!
I remember in the service, our officer in charge would give a order, they always said they wanted it done yesterday! In short, now!
But friends, to do what you like, when you like, how you like, isn’t the solution.
Paul goes on to say this “ All things are lawful for me, BUT all things are NOT helpful. All things are lawful for me, BUT I will not be brought under the power of any!”
You see, paul is telling us clearly, just because you can do something, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be helpful, and I will go even further to say it may not be in Gods agenda for you to ultimately fail something, but he can allow it to happen and you will learn something from it even. This includes pain and suffering!
I remember sometime ago a member of a church mentioned how they wanted to do Godly work for a long time. This person prepared, fasted and prayed, done all the right things that they thought was necessary. Once the work actually started, everything fell apart and nothing worked right. Pure devastation needless to say, however it was learned how ambitious in their own agenda, own will, was not in Gods timing or plan.
Everything they thought was for good, God did not give them direction. They assumed based upon his own will, drive, appetite.
So in titling the sermon today Come and See, I was reminded just now people today think and even drive towards the goal they have set, but not realizing its not helpful at all especially without the Holy Spirits direction.
Let me give you another example, several people in my lifes journey I met was of other religions and not Christian. These individuals was very pleasant, nice and even better than some fellow believers when it comes to manners and such.
As time progressed, life’s tragedy hit some of them, and immediately they went towards their own methods to rectify and even justify the reasoning and cause only to find out there was no true hope in whom they was calling upon. Not certain if it woke them but.
In Gospel of John, a fitting example in todays message, Nathanaels incredulity that the messiah should spring from a town so familiar to him, so with sort of chuckle of the comment “can anything good come out of Nazareth” meaning not possible from what I have seen before. Bordering slamming the door for something good to come out of Nazareth, Nathanels unbelief that something good can come out of Nazareth.. So Philip said to Nathanel, ‘Come and See for yourself!’
Basically, what you think and believe, maybe isn’t enough. Nazareth may not been known for great things, but something good did come from it, Jesus!
All Philip told nathanel to do was come and see!
When nathanel did go and see Jesus, he believed upon him hearing and seeing Jesus. It changed his life!
So when there are other ways to do something for God, for ourselves, for others, that does not make it a clear and open road to do it. When we don’t have Jesus in our spotlight, we turn to other things at times don’t we?
There is a country singer that sang “Everybody wants to get to heaven, but no one wants to die!”
There is some truth to that! There is work to be done while on this earth! When we go to other sources for advice instead of Jesus, when we turn to other religions instead of Jesus, when we lose our faith to everyday mircales that only Jesus has guaranteed, when we think our rights and liberty are more important than immoral and vain living, we need to think “come and see Jesus.”
Try him out! You have nothing to lose! Nothing!
IN closing, let me give a final examples in the Gospel of Matthew. There was a leper that came to Jesus. Now if you don’t know, lepers was outcasts amongs the community, shunned per-say and not well taken care of when it comes to a disease.
So this one leper that not only went to Jesus, but worshipped him, and asked “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus put out his hand and touched the leper and said “I am willing; be cleansed” then immediately his leprosy was cleansed. It was just that simple!
Then you have a Centurion soldier that came and pleaded to Jesus to heir one of their servants. Now I find this very fascinating friends. The Centurion did not ask Jesus to come and heal the servant, just give the word! Just speak it and I know it will happen!
All Jesus really said was “What a tremendous faith. I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”
Friends, there is always a element of faith when coming and seeing Jesus, but remember, he is willing with open arms, and never rejected anyone and as always ready to lend us his healing hand, Amen.