Set Aside Your Advantage

Transcript

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[0:00] So let's invite you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. It's printed in your bulletin. You can look along in your Bible. I'm going to be reading from the New Revised Standard Version this morning. It's a great version. And so just a few words of introduction again. We have Paul is still defending himself to this church. And the members of the church of Corinth are questioning both his authority and his motives. They're just not sure that Paul is the right guy. And it must have been hard for him because he had to figure out the right balance between not being personally offended and taking it out on them personally, but actually saying, no, I have authority from the Lord himself. I met him. I have this knowledge. I have this authority. I need to correct. And so I think he's doing this as gently as possible.

[0:57] And in this case, the question is, why does Paul not use collections from the church to pay his own salary? It's a very interesting question. We'll get into that later. But that's the issue at stake. And in their minds, that made him suspicious that he wasn't taking money. And what's great about this passage, as we'll see, is Paul uses the issue to teach about a deeper truth. And so as we read this, you'll see that while it may seem to be about money, in the end, we'll see that there's a deeper thing going on. And that is the actual reason why Paul doesn't take any salary for his work. So let's go to our reading. It's 1 Corinthians 9.

[1:41] Paul writes this. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not? Am I not my work in the Lord? If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

[2:03] This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to our food and drink? Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? That's Peter. Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain, from working for a living?

[2:24] Who at any time pays the expenses for doing military service? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat any of its fruit? Or who tends to a flock and does not get any of its milk? Do I say this on human authority? Does not the law also say the same? For it is written in the law of Moses, You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain. Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or does God not get the grain? does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was indeed written for our sake, for whoever plows should plow in hope, and whoever threshes should thresh in hope of a share in the crop. If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we still more? Or, nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is sacrificed on the altar? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living, and that they should be given the right to live.

[3:51] And the Lord said, I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this so that they may be applied in my case. Indeed, I would rather die than that. No one will deprive me of my ground for boasting. If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me is that I am not given the right to live. If I do not proclaim the gospel.

[4:22] For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this, that in my proclamation, I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

[4:46] For though I am free, with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to win Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though I myself am not under the law, so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law, I became as one outside the law, though I am not free from God's law, but am under Christ's law. So that I might win those outside the law.

[5:23] To the weak, I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.

[5:51] Athletes exercise self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air, but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others, I myself should not be disqualified. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, and we ask that you would add your blessing to it in this moment. In Jesus' name, Amen.

[6:21] Well, that was exciting, and I'm going to tell you the truth as usual. 80% of the time, I got chills up my back as I was reading that, because it's such powerful stuff. Did you feel the power there? Can you sense that Paul really just cares about the gospel above almost anything else? It's what he lives for, and it's what animates him all the time. It takes over his entire person. And when he writes, he talks about this, even our memory verses. Remember 1 Corinthians 2, 2. When I was with you, I had purpose to have to know nothing but Christ and him crucified. This gospel is all he can be about. He can't add anything to it.

[7:02] So let's look back a little bit on this chapter. Even though it's a long chapter, and it covers a lot of details, I think it can be summed up in one verse. And look at verse 12b. That would be the second sentence in verse 12. He writes this, We endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. I'm going to read that again. We endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. And so that's not a new idea. 1 Corinthians 2, 2. You know, he's all about Christ and him crucified. He's not going to add anything to it. There's no Christ and. There's no extra topping on top. Of this meal that he gives people. It's just Jesus, the gospel, the cross of Jesus Christ. It's all he can be about. And he doesn't want anything to stand in the way of people receiving this gospel.

[8:00] And so he's saying there's no impediment. There's no obstacle. There's no hindrance to the gospel going out. The Greek word here for obstacle is and it means a barrier. Like an obstacle. You know, you could think of maybe a road bump, you know, like a speed bump in the road, but actually much bigger in the Roman world. They would use this word to describe a fortification or a preparation in defense of a city. And they would tear up the road so that an invading army would be slowed down. And that would be an obstacle or a hindrance. And egg copay would be this way of slowing down the advance of an oncoming army. And Paul says, I don't want anything to do with the gospel. I want the gospel to be an obstacle for the gospel to go forth. Well, one thing we should look at, and I mentioned it in the introduction and it kind of comes out, it is a bit of a surprise. He is defending himself as usual to these, this church in Corinth. It's a very challenging church for him. He's defending himself because he does not take money to preach the gospel. Isn't that interesting? You kind of think it would be a little different. We might think an evangelist would have to defend themselves because they took money to preach the gospel, right?

[9:25] And the question is, why does he defend himself? The answer is that as usual, the Corinthians have really, they have everything backwards. So for them, if they have more knowledge, that makes them more spiritual. And Paul says, well, no, more knowledge actually makes you more humble. That's what he's saying. That's what makes you more spiritual. More demonstration of spiritual gifts makes them better than everybody else. Well, no, you have to love each other. You have to be a body. More lewd behavior shows how far they have transcended the human body and they are on a higher plane now where the body doesn't matter. He says, no, that's wrong. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. It's important that they're all connected together. And for them, perhaps, the more money an apostle takes or the more money an apostle takes, the more money an apostle earns for his work in the gospel would mean that he is a more qualified apostle. Do you see the logic there? If the apostle is rich, God must be blessing him. If the apostle is rich, then he must have the true gospel, right? And we know that there are still churches that believe this way. We call them the sort of the wealth and prosperity, health and prosperity types of churches.

[10:42] And I have visited one. And I'm not joking. I'm going to tell you what I saw. I was coming into the church. I got there early. The pastor arrived 10 minutes before the worship service started, which I didn't get because it seems like he'd want to be there just praying, getting ready, thinking. But maybe he did that at home, given the benefit of the doubt. But he parked in a special parking spot that was closest to the front door. It was closer even than the handicap parking spots. And he pulled up in a $60,000 car, you know. And about that church, though, the people would have been disappointed if he didn't do that because he was preaching that if you believe, if you follow, then you're going to have health and wealth and everything else. And so if he were to show up in an old car, kind of a clunker, right, they would say, Well, yeah, we don't want to be like him. So in some ways that pastor had to sort of embody the message he was sending. Now, just so you know, we don't preach that way. We don't believe that. We actually believe that when you become a Christian, you're asked to give up many things, that you're supposed to sacrifice many things, including your own life, sometimes your wealth, sometimes your career.

[12:06] You might get called to do something else that earns a whole lot less money or no money at all. You may be called to give generously to somebody who is in need. And so, and there's no guarantee that you're going to be a healthier person if you follow Jesus. All that you have is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's given to you for free. But there's no promise that we make that you'll be healthy and wealthy or any of those things.

[12:38] So Paul follows this up, and he does make a very interesting point. He says, actually, an apostle does have the right to take money for their work because it's work. So he had every right. This is the important thing to remember. He didn't take money, but he had every right to take this money. And he says, doing this, it takes time. It takes energy. It takes apostles away from other pursuits that could earn them money. And so, yes, absolutely, the people who work in the temple get some of the offerings that come into the temple. Even the ox that is stepping on the grain, I guess, to sort of mill it, even the ox is allowed to nibble a little bit of that. And he says, does God make that law for the ox? Well, yeah, but also really for us, it's a symbol to us that those who work in ministry should earn or can earn their living by their ministry.

[13:38] But even though he has the right to these things, and he makes the case that he absolutely has the right to these things, he never exercises that right. This is what he says. He says, I haven't taken any of that stuff, and I'm really glad I haven't. If you look back in Acts 18, verse 3, you'll find that he spent many months in Corinth developing this church. And while he did that, he didn't take any money from them, but he had a part-time job. Maybe it was even a full-time job. And he was making tents, so he probably had a needle and a thread, and he got fabric or some other materials, and he was sewing all day long. And then in the evenings or on the weekends, he was in the synagogue preaching the gospel. He did that for 18 months. He earned his own salary doing other work that he could make money at, and he did not burden the church with the monetary requirements of his own upkeep, his food, his lodging, and all the rest. He took care of that himself. And he says he did this so that he could give the gospel, the gospel away for free, which is a super important idea, right? You want to keep your mind on that because it is free. The gospel is always free. It's free to hear, and it offers a free gift of grace.

[14:54] And I'll say this for our church. As far as I know, as far as I can see into the future, we will never charge you to listen to the gospel. We will never charge you to walk in the doors and attend a worship service. We would never do that because the gospel is free. It's not performance art. That's not how we pay for the people who do ministry. We find other ways of doing that. We'll take donations, absolutely, but those are completely free too. You can take it or leave it. And you know what? Even if you have more money and you give more money to the church, there's no guarantee there that you'll receive more services from the church than somebody who gives nothing to the church. And that actually happens quite a bit too. We'll take care of anyone. We'll pray with anyone. We'll minister to anyone. We'll visit anyone in the hospital. And it doesn't matter to us if they've given or not. And the other thing that maybe you know and you should know is that the pastors of the church, we have no idea how much money any of you give to the church. And we don't know, and we don't want to know, and we shouldn't know because we can't let that influence anything about the ministry we do. We just assume. We let other people worry about that.

[16:10] The treasurer can worry about how much money comes in, and he can record it. But we don't need to know who a good giver is or somebody who doesn't give. The very first church I served, well, one of the very first churches I served, the very first time I met one family, they made a point of telling me how much money they had given to the church over their whole lifetimes. And I was disappointed. I was disappointed. I didn't know why they did that. I don't know if they, I mean, on one level, I could say, praise God that you were so generous. On another level was, well, what do you want? Do you want something? Do you want extra? Do you want a better parking spot? I don't know. I didn't know what they wanted.

[16:52] So we don't keep track of that. Well, we keep track of it to send you a letter, but the pastors don't know. We give you ministry, and it's free, and it's without regard to anything else. So all of this now gets back to verse 12b. And I want you to look at it again, right? Take a look at verse 12b, and I've got to have it in italics here. We endure everything, anything, rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. So Paul didn't want any of his needs, financial or otherwise, to be an obstacle to them receiving the gospel. He didn't want to be a financial burden to them. And of course they had it backwards. They thought, oh, if he takes a lot of our money, or if he earns a lot of money from all these other churches, that means he's a great apostle. No. He says, I have the right to that, but I'm setting aside that right. My authority, my effectiveness as an apostle has nothing to do with money. It has to do with Jesus' testimony directly to me on the road to Damascus. It says, And it has to do with his connection with Jesus himself.

[18:06] So he didn't want anyone to question why he needed money from them. So here's the interesting thing. He chose not to take money from them because he did not want money or anything else to become an obstacle or impediment to them hearing the gospel. And remember at the earlier part I said there's a deeper truth that's now emerging. He's dealing with the issue of finances, and he's clearing up that he has a right to them, but he's not taking them. And he's kind of making a case. But the deeper issue starts coming now. The deeper truth starts coming now in verse 19. And that's when we proclaim the gospel, we try as best we can not to add anything to it or put something in the way of someone hearing it from us. This is super important.

[18:54] So, I'm going to read from verses 19 through 22 again just to refresh it. This is what Paul says because we're going to unpack this just very quickly. This is what verse 19 and on says, I am not free from God's law, though I am not free from God's law, but I am under Christ's law, so that I might win those who are outside the law.

[19:39] To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. Okay, sorry about that. There we go. So, I want to just repeat this last thing, the second half of verse 22. He says this, I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. So, here Paul again is, and this happens over and over again. It's funny how this theme keeps emerging. Paul is talking about giving up some of his freedom so that he can serve the gospel. And some of that freedom is in his own identity. When he is with someone of a certain culture or a certain attitude towards the law or a certain station in life, he tries to take on that way of being so the person listening to him will have the best chance possible of believing. Now, you may know that missionaries think about this kind of thing. How much should they change if they're going to reach the people they're sent to bring the gospel to? And the easiest way to think about this is, for one thing, they definitely learn the language of the people that they're ministering to because they don't want the language difference to be a barrier to them hearing the gospel. So, a big part of what they do is if they're ministering to,

[21:12] you know, to the French, they would have to learn French first because the French have to hear the gospel in French first so that there's no barrier there. But there's other things, really, when you go to another culture, there's all sorts of other things happening. There's food, there's customs, there's habits, there's clothing. What do they wear? Should I dress the same as the people I'm bringing the gospel to so that my clothing won't distract them while we're having this conversation? And missionaries think about these things all the time. And there's a guiding principle here. You could kind of get yourself kind of tied up in knots, but I do believe the Spirit will guide us. So, one thing is, somebody needs to be in tune with the Spirit and in tune with Christ. And they would say to themselves, what is working? What is it that I'm sensing this person needs? And what is it that is in me that's getting in the way? And is there any way to set that part of myself aside while I'm in this relationship with that person so that they can just, when they see me, they just see Jesus, they just hear the gospel, and they don't hear all, hear or see all these other things that could be distracting to them.

[22:29] So, there's this calling on us. And really, each of us is a missionary to this part of the world that we're in right now. And when you're at work, you're a certain person. When you're out and about, you're a certain person. When you have friends, you're a certain person. And yes, you are the same person, but it takes some spiritual maturity that Paul has, and he's asking us to have, is to figure out what is it that we, need to set aside in ourselves so that the other person won't be distracted by that aspect of us, and they can see the true, the true thing that God wants them to hear, which is the gospel.

[23:08] And, you know, there's these rights. Paul has the right to income from his ministry, but he sets aside that right. He lays aside an advantage. He gives away a privilege, right? And he does it for the sake of the gospel. And I think that's what drives us as well. We have rights. We have rights. We have rights. We have We have rights. We have rights. We have rights. We have advantages. We have privileges. We have benefits. We have our identity, which we may be very proud of, but we need to be like Paul. We need to be like Jesus. Jesus set aside his rights as God. He set aside his rights as the son of God, and he emptied himself. And so there's this freedom, but we set it aside so that we can become a servant to other people. We serve other people, and then we're oriented, to other people, and especially on other people who don't know the gospel.

[23:58] The last thing I would say is, this brings up an interesting challenge, because there is something in my identity which is truly myself, right, that God gave me. And so should I set aside that true identity I have in Christ? And I'm not necessarily sure that's the right answer, but there may be these other layers on top of the self, that God loves them, God thinks they're interesting, maybe even God gave me inclinations towards those things, but they're not, in the end, my true self. And so, for example, I love to talk about football. The football season's been canceled, or postponed, but I went to the University of Arizona, and if I were trying to talk to somebody from Arizona State University, our arch rival, which we've been playing football against since 1885 or something like that, and before the evangelistic conversation with the person from that school, I talked a lot about how great my school was. That has nothing to do with the gospel, and it's a distraction to the person hearing it. And so I don't need to be a University of Arizona alumnus just then. I can set that aside. It's not important. It's not essential to what's going on, if I want to have this conversation with somebody. Last week, Michael brought me a Vietnamese

[25:18] sign. I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to be a Vietnamese sandwich. It was delicious. It was from a Vietnamese sandwich shop, and then also a little cup of really strong coffee. And it was a perfect sandwich, and I'll tell you why. Because it was on a nice bun, and it had different meats inside of it and things like that. But every now and then, every third bite, I'd get a little bite of a jalapeno pepper. And that pepper made it like an interesting sandwich. It made it a great sandwich. You know, it was, just, and it was, that was part of the identity of that sandwich, was just a little bit of jalapeno every third bite, and it just brought flavor and zing to the whole sandwich, and I just, I gobbled it up. It was great. It was a super great sandwich. Now, think about that sandwich. What if it was all jalapeno, right? Then it's overpowering. Then it's too much. Then all the nuance and all the flavors of all the other things don't really come out. And so I think sometimes we need to to go light on the jalapeno, maybe, if you get my meaning. So yes, we're ourselves. Yes, we have this identity. But we can set aside some of that so that all these things can mix together, our identity, the gospel, when we share who we are. And you may tell a story about yourself when you

[26:39] share the gospel. But if it's all you, then it's all jalapeno. And it's not a great sandwich anymore. It's something else. It's not a good sandwich. That's all I'm going to say. But there's that certain level. And again, I think the Spirit helps us here. The Spirit helps us to know what's the right balance. What is the need that this person has that I'm talking to now? How do I set aside those parts of me that I have privilege in, that I have advantage in? How can I set those aside and truly serve this other person so that there's not a single obstacle to them here? Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. And we pray that you would bless us, help us to be thinking on these things, so that when we speak to people, we could indeed become all things to all people, so that a few might come to believe. Amen.