All In: Managing Your Faith

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

March 23, 2025

Imagine moving into a new house, you just went through a divorce, it’s late in the evening and you receive a text message saying that your phone bill was not processed because the account details were out of date. You click on the link to update your account details and soon you receive a call from your bank’s fraud team. They tell you about an unusual text you’ve just received and they want to protect your money. Unfortunately, though, the call was not from your bank. The text message was the beginning of a well-crafted scam to get you to trust this fake “banking fraud team,” so these people could steal your hard-earned life savings. Sadly, this actually happened to a lady named Moya several years ago as the scammers helped Moya move her money to a new account that they controlled and within an hour she lost her life savings.

Do you think you could ever get scammed like Moya did and lose all your money? I’m sure many of us would say, “No way, that will never happen to me. I will never give my bank account information to anyone over the phone or in a text message from a business questioning my account status. I would certainly be suspicious of someone calling me at night and asking me to move my money to a different account.” I wonder how many people, in addition to Moya, once thought the same thing before they were scammed and ended up losing a lot of money?

You and I may never end up losing our money through some sort of scam, but could something even worse happen to us? Could you, for example, ever stop believing in Jesus as your Savior and therefore forfeit a wonderful, glorious, eternal home in heaven for a place in hell? I’m sure we would all think, “That will never happen to me.” But every church, regardless of denomination, have people who stop attending and leave. Despite efforts to reach people who no longer attend worship, many people cut themselves off from the family of believers that they were once a part

of, only to leave. Some of them join other church families and that’s good, but some of them never join another church. Does that mean they have walked away from the Christian faith?

“That could never happen to me” might be a dangerous phrase for us to speak or think, because Paul warns us in our second lesson from 1 Corinthians that we can fall from faith if we underestimate sin. On the other hand, Paul assures us that we won’t fall from faith if we rely on God’s promises.

Paul was writing this letter to the Christians at Corinth who believed that since they had been baptized and received the Lord’s Supper on a regular basis, they were spiritually set for life. Whenever we have the joy of seeing a child baptized here at the church and receive the gift of eternal life with God, parents publicly promise to pray for their child, bring them to worship, teach them the 10 Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer, and eventually bring them to Holy Communion, so their child will grow in their faith. Parents have a big responsibility that never ends. But sadly, many of those families have left the church. So none of us should think that since we have been baptized or just because we receive Holy Communion on a regular basis, that we will automatically end up in heaven.

Therefore, Paul wants those Christians in Corinth and all of us to look at the Israelites in the Old Testament as an example. In the first 5 verses of our text he said, “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” (1 Corinthians 10:1-5)

When Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt they received a baptism of sorts when they went through the Red Sea. This act did not offer them forgiveness, as does the New Testament sacrament of baptism, but when God parted the waters of the Red Sea it was proof of how much God loved them that He would save them in such a dramatic way. But it wasn’t just

that one time rescue from Egypt that reassured the Israelites that God loved them. Every day bread, known as manna, fell from the skies feeding over 2 million people in the middle of the wilderness. While this miraculous manna did nothing more than satisfy their physical hunger and did not offer forgiveness as does the bread of Holy Communion, the manna did remind the Israelites daily of God’s love for them.

The point Paul is making to the Christians in Corinth is if they thought the blessings of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper guaranteed their entrance into heaven, they only needed to look back at the history of the Israelites in the Old Testament to see that this was not true. The Israelites had many blessings from God as did the Corinthians, but most of the Israelites over the age of 20 died in the desert and never made it to the Promised Land because they underestimated their sin and received God’s punishment for turning away from Him. Paul describes some of their sins starting in verse 7 by saying, “Do not be idolaters as some of them were…” Paul is referring here to the golden calf incident that most of us know. After Moses had been on top of a mountain with God to get the 10 Commandments, the people got tired of waiting for Moses to return. So they made a golden calf and worshipped it as their god. God was furious with the people for doing this and turning away from Him, and 3000 were put to death as a result.

Paul goes on to say in verses 8-10, “Do not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day. Do not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were killed by snakes; nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.” I’m sure the Israelites got tired of eating manna every day for almost 40 years, but God does not take kindly even to grumbling as a response to the blessings He gives to us. As a result, many more Israelites died.

Paul concludes by cautioning the Corinthians and all of us by saying, “These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction…So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you do not fall.” (1 Cor. 10:11-12) You may think that you could

never fall from faith, as did many of the stubborn Israelites, but if you say things like, “What’s wrong if I check out pornography? I’m not hurting anyone.” “So I drink a lot of alcohol, who cares? I don’t drink and drive. That alcohol helps to get me through the weekend. We’re having meatloaf again? So what if I grumble and complain. Hey, I’m baptized. I take Communion at church. Hasn’t God forgiven me?” Yes, God has forgiven you, so stop ignoring your sins. Jesus did not shed His blood to save us for sin, so we could continue sinning, but to save us from sin. If you underestimate your sin, no matter what that sin is, you could easily face God’s wrath.

So what should we do since we all tend to underestimate our sins? Should we be worried that we won’t go to heaven? That’s what Satan wants us to do. But God wants us to turn from ourselves and look to Him. In Baptism and Communion God assures us that those sins have been forgiven. Just as God accompanied the Israelites in the wilderness to continually provide them with water to drink, so God accompanies us and His well of forgiveness never runs dry. Therefore, because of Jesus your place in heaven is not a “maybe” but a definite “yes.” So keep relying on this promise for assurance and comfort in your life, and remember the final words of Paul in our text when he said in verse 13, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” Even though temptations will continue to bombard you every day, you won’t fall from faith if you continue to rely on God’s promise not to give you more than you can bear, and to always provide a way out.

Could you ever get scammed? You could if you are not careful. By the way, Moya eventually got all of her money back. So just as you are careful to protect your money, we need to carefully protect our faith so that we don’t lose out on a home in heaven. Rely on God’s promises of forgiveness and power to resist temptation, because if you do, by God’s grace you will never fall from faith.