The Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany Knowledge Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! 1. God says in His Bible that KNOWLEDGE created the world and everything that is in it; not your knowledge or my knowledge, but God’s knowledge. It is written in Proverbs chapter 3, The Lord by WISDOM founded the earth; by UNDERSTANDING He established the heavens; by His KNOWLEDGE the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew (Proverbs 3:19-20). According to these Words, the Lord our God knows stuff. But God was not content to keep His knowledge stuck in His head. God converted His knowledge into Words, He spoke these Words and through His Words “all things came to be” (Isaiah 66:2). Again it is written, “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6). 2. God also says in His Bible that KNOWLEDGE created your salvation, in particular, your justification, which is now yours through the forgiveness of your sins. This is what God says about His Son Jesus in Isaiah chapter 53: “By His KNOWLEDGE [Jesus]… will make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11). In a strange and wonderful way, Christ Jesus our crucified Lord took His knowledge and transformed it into our salvation. He knew exactly what He was doing when He allowed Himself to be betrayed into the hands of evil men. “Jesus knew that the Father had given all thing into His hands” and in that knowledge He allowed all things to be taken from Him, even His life. As it was in the creation, so again in salvation, God’s knowledge miraculously transformed into God’s Words, and those Words have come to us, and these Words do great things for us. Again it is written concerning your Lord Jesus, “He knows how to sustain with a Word the one who is weary” (Isaiah 50:4). 3. What is your salvation? The Scriptures describe your salvation in many different ways. In Christ you have been rescued (Luke 1:71, Colossians 1:13), ransomed (Mark 10:45), forgiven your sins (Luke 24:47), healed (Isaiah 53:5), washed clean (1 Corinthians 6:11, Titus 3:5), set free from prison (4:18), pulled up out of the pit (Psalm 40:2), adopted (Romans 8:15), reborn (John 3:5), grafted into Christ the Vine (John 15:4-5, Romans 11:17) raised from the dead (Ephesians 2:4-5) and even seated with Christ in heaven (Ephesians 2:6). Among these many ways God speaks about your salvation in His Scriptures, He also describes your salvation as His gift of knowledge to you. God’s Words “make you wise for salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15). God’s Words have “enriched you in all speech and in all knowledge… so that you are not lacking any spiritual gift” (1 Corinthians 1:5, 7). You have received “knowledge of the truth” (Hebrews 10:26) and “knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:13). 4. When God’s perfect, miracle-producing knowledge comes to us, this knowledge enters into sinful ears and it settles in sin-weakened brains. Because of the on-going disease of sin that we all share, God’s gift of knowledge does not always do as well within us as He would like. That is why it can be said that some have greater knowledge than others, just as some people have greater strength than others or greater patience than others. Tragically, sin also tempts sinful people—even Christians—to use God’s blessed of gift of knowledge, not as a tool of love for neighbor, but as a tool of self-exaltation. In today’s Epistle, God had spoken His gift of knowledge to people in Corinth, in the same way that He has likewise spoken His gift of knowledge to us. God’s gift of knowledge became a weapon that one Christian used against another. Some Christians in Corinth had developed such a good, secure and unshakeable knowledge of Christ and His salvation that they were totally unbothered by the meat that they bought in the local markets, even though that meat had been previously sacrificed on the altars of idols. These strong Christians knew that Christ Jesus is not only the sacrifice for their sins, but also their strength against all the powers of the devil. So they bought the meat in the markets—“food offered to idols”—and they ate it in freedom and without fear. Not all the Christians in the city of Corinth had the same strength of faith, the same confidence in Christ. The one Word of God had been spoken to all of them, but you know how human minds work—one person understands while another struggles. Some of these less knowledgeable, less secure Christians were scandalized by the meat that the other Christians were eating. And they were divided one from another. And Paul wrote to them saying, Do not allow your knowledge to divide you! For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 5. We should learn from these Corinthian Christians, and we should daily renew our sense of love and devotion to one another as members of Christ’s body (Romans 12:5, Colossians 3:15) and as members of Grace Lutheran Church. Not that our knowledge would puff us up, but that we would use God’s precious gift of knowledge to build one another up, each according to his or her own ability. The issue among us will probably never be the problem of food sacrificed to idols. But I bet we can find things that might possibly divide us. The devil is ever vigilant, watching for his opportunity to disturb our unity of Spirit and bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3). Our own sinful flesh is never far away. Whatever knowledge each of us has been given from God, this knowledge must remain carefully wrapped in self-sacrifice, patience, forbearance and love. As God’s apostle Paul said here in today’s Epistle, “Love builds up.” The same apostle also said in another place, “If I understand all mysteries and all knowledge… but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). 6. We should not misunderstand today’s Epistle, either. Paul is not telling us here that we should avoid becoming knowledgeable, or avoid using our knowledge, for the sake of love. God has given us knowledge, just as God has given us love. If you take love away from knowledge, all you get is destruction. If you take knowledge away from love, all you get is a hug. If you keep God’s gift of knowledge directly connected to God’s gift of love; if you keep God’s gift of love married to His gift of knowledge; then you have the on-going life of your Lord Jesus Christ in your midst: • Who knowingly and lovingly gave up all things for us and for our salvation; • Who possesses all wisdom in heaven and on earth, and yet made Himself nothing; • Who even now pours His love into you through the knowledge of salvation; and • Who gives you knowledge on account of His love.
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