- All right, let's open our
Bibles to I Corinthians Chapter nine please, this
is a, as I've explained to you already, a study of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, first letter. And as I mention each
week perhaps we have some who are visitors or some
who are just coming in to the class for the first time, we're not taking it line by line, but rather a variety of subjects that we're studying in
this particular book, glad to have everybody
in class, glad to have those folks who join us on live stream at home on their computers. You know, one of the
most precious blessings connected with living in
this particular nation is the personal freedom that we enjoy, we often in our prayers
are thankful for those who serve in public
security, in the military, so on and so forth, those who protect and guarantee our freedom,
and it's a very important protection, a very
important gift that we have in this nation. We pride ourselves on
this aspect of our lives and also we measure our
success and our worth actually by the amount
of freedom that we have, you know, the degree
of freedom that we have often is an indicator of how
successful we are in society. The desire for greater personal freedom, you know, to do what we
want, when we want to do it, drives the engine if our careers and is, you know, it's a lifelong
objective of many people, people save up their money and you know, put away money and invest and work hard and double overtime and so on and so forth so they'll have enough money
to be able to just say, you know, all right, I'm
free, I am independent, I don't have a boss anymore,
I can just do what I want, people love this idea of freedom, to be free to do what
I want, where I want, whenever I want, some people
work themselves to death, you know, to just to achieve
this kind of freedom. Roy, somebody brought back some things and we have some more people
that came in in the back, if you don't have a sheet by the way just put your hand up and
Roy will get those to you. Now it's interesting to
compare this approach that we have in our country
with the view of freedom with what Paul the
apostle says about freedom in I Corinthians 9:9-10, very interesting to compare the two. Paul pursued freedom, but his approach was to pursue freedom through slavery, freedom through slavery. It seems very odd,
doesn't it, that one could achieve freedom through
such a thing as slavery, but that's exactly what Paul the apostle proposes to the Corinthians
in Chapters nine and 10 of his letter, an interesting concept, a very Christian concept. Now you have to understand
that in the first century in Greece and the city of
Corinth of course was in Greece and Paul was writing to
that particular church and that city you have to
understand that in first century Greece it was quite an
advantage to be a free person in a society largely inhabited
by those who were slaves. Today, you know, you say you're free, if you're not in jail,
you know, you're free, but in those days being free was a really, a personal, a personal
advantage that you enjoyed that not everybody
enjoyed in your society. So this condition it seems
have led them to feel proud and forget that freedom brought with it certain responsibilities,
so there were people in the church at Corinth
because they were free, because they were free
men thought that this was something to be proud of,
and in the church at Corinth where there were both slaves and free men who gathered together to worship this caused some division. So in his letter Paul
the apostle reminds them of the four areas that
he himself as an apostle had given up, where he
had given up his freedom in order to guarantee the
salvation of other people. An example which he hopes
will temper their pride, too proud, they were free, they thought they were better than everyone else, especially better than
those who were slaves and who were also worshiping
in that congregation. And so he tells them how he
has given up certain freedoms in order to guarantee the salvation, so those are the things
we're going to talk about in Chapters nine and 10, the
four freedoms that he gave up. First of all, first
freedom that he's given up is the freedom to be
compensated for preaching, the freedom that he's given
up, to be paid if you wish for preaching, and let's
go to Chapter nine, will read the passage here,
it's a little bit long, but it explains well what
he's talking about here. He says, and read with me,
Chapter nine, verse one. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If to others I am not an
apostle, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my
apostleship in the Lord. My defense to those
who examine me is this: Do we not have a right to eat and drink? Do we not have a right to
take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the
apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working? Who at any times serves as a
soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and
does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does
not use the milk of the flock? I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the Law also say these things? For it is written in the Law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle the
ox while he is threshing." God is not concerned about oxen, is He? Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh
in hope of sharing the crops. Of we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we should
reap material things from you? If others share the right
over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things that we may cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those
who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple,
and those who attend regularly to the altar have their
share with the altar? And so we'll stop, we'll stop there, he goes on, but that's
enough to make my point. Paul says one of the
freedoms that I've given up is the freedom to be
compensated for preaching. He claims that he is a legitimate apostle because he has seen the
Lord and established them in Christ through his preaching. So you know, I have a legitimacy,
I am an apostle he says, and I have a right over you
because I taught you the gospel, you're the fruit of my labor, he says. And then he points to the other apostles and he reminds them that
they travel with their wives, he even mentions Peter, you
know, Peter and the other apostle, he says, they
travel with their wives. He says, don't I have the same right? And it makes me, it makes me think here, he says, Peter and the
brothers of the Lord. Doesn't that make Jesus,
Jesus had like sister-in-laws, nieces, and nephews, 'cause
right here Paul says, you know, he mentions the apostles, and then the brothers of the Lord who travel with their wives. Just a little interesting
thing when you think about it. Paul also reviews the
scriptures that teach the principle that the
one who works at something deserves to profit or to
be paid by that enterprise. I mean if you work at something
you got to be paid, he says. So after establishing his
right to receive payment for his work according to the
example of the other apostles, according to the teachings
of the scriptures, according to the history
of the Jewish priesthood, he declares that he
has given up that right in order to maintain a higher principle, and he talks about that in verse 14. Read with me, he says,
so also the Lord directed those who proclaim the
gospel to get their living from the gospel. So he kind of summarizes the point here, he summarizes the freedom and the right that he has been given by the Lord himself to be paid for what he does. He says, you know, I'm an
apostle, I preach the gospel to you, you're Christians
because of my work, I have a right to be paid for what I do. But then let's read verse
15 and see how he follows up with that idea. He says but I have used
none of these things. And I am not writing these
things that it may be done so in my case; for it would
be better for me to die than have any man make
my boast an empty one. So now he claims that he
says this not to get them to pay him what he has
a right to, you know, I'm not trying to make
you feel guilty, he says, so that you will pay me a salary, that's not the reason why I'm saying this, he says he'd rather die than
to have someone accuse him of preaching for money. I mean he has a right
to be paid for his work, but he says I don't want anybody to say that I am preaching just to make money. And so he goes on now with his argument in verse 16, 17, 18,
he says the following. For if I preach the gospel,
I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion, for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this
voluntarily I have a reward; but if against my will,
I have a stewardship entrusted to me. What then is my reward? That, when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge, so as not to make full use
of my right in the gospel. And so he explains why
he preaches for free. He preaches for free in
order to do two things. One, to demonstrate that his preaching is a responsibility given to him by God. It's a thing that he does whether he gets money for it or not, because God has directed him to do it. If you pay him to do it, he'll do it, if you don't pay him to do
it, he'll do it the same. You know, an example of that
is people who are artists, for example, you know, they
have a vision and they, they're artists and they
want to paint and whatever. If they sell their paintings, great, if they don't sell their paintings, they just keep painting, don't they? They have a vision, they have a talent, they have something that pushes
them to express themselves. Paul is saying kind of the same thing, God has given me this thing to do and whether I get paid or not I've got to do this
thing, I've got to preach. And then secondly, he says,
by giving up his right to be paid he can freely
offer the gospel to everybody, not just those who can afford it. Not just rich churches or rich
people can hear the gospel, who can afford to exchange, you know, his ministry for money,
but poor people can do it, all kinds of people can
hear him preach the gospel. So Paul is free to receive payment, but he gives up this
freedom in order to gain the freedom to preach to
everyone who will listen without reference to money. I mean they can accuse
him of a lot of things, oh you're preaching the
gospel out of pride, or you're some kind of
religious wacko or whatever, but they can't say, oh you're
doing this just for the money. He takes away that accusation. That's why he gives up
his freedom to be paid. And you know, we accomplished,
we do the same thing here in Choctaw, don't we? We provide support for Jean
Elmera who works in Haiti. Now why do we do this? So he can preach the gospel to
the people of Haiti for free. They don't have to pay
him, the church there doesn't have to, it's a very poor country, and we know, you know,
you think we have problems 'cause it rained a little bit and maybe we got some water in our
basement or something, I mean in Haiti when it
rains, wow, it's terrible. So the people of that nation
can't accuse our missionary of preaching the gospel to them for money because he goes anywhere
on the island of Haiti in any town, any city, any
village, any church, any place, and he can bring the
good news to those people and not ask for anything in return, why? Because we and other churches
here in the United States provide money so that Jean
can do his work in Haiti at no charge to the
people of that country. So this is what Paul
is trying to accomplish so that his sincerity and his good will would not be in question. Another freedom that Paul
gave up is the freedom from tradition and the
freedom from opinion. Keep going, verse 19,
we're in Chapter nine if you're following along in your Bibles. He says the following, he
says, for though I am free from all men, I have made
myself a slave to all, that I may win the more. And to the Jews I became a
Jew, that I might win Jews, to those who are under
the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those
who are under the Law; to those who are without
law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ,
that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak,
that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. And I do all things for
the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker in it. So Paul is saying as a
Christian he had only one Lord, and so because of that he
was free from the demands of religion, he was free
from the demands of culture, tradition, and other people's opinions. As a Christian he says,
his only Lord was Jesus, his only law, the word of Christ. He wasn't without any
direction, any you know, box, any rules, he says I'm under Christ, I'm under the word of Christ,
and that's a higher rule than any other rule,
somebody's opinion for example. So as he traveled he gave up this freedom, this freedom to be, you know,
not under anybody's opinion or tradition, only under Christ, he gave up this freedom
and he subjected himself to other people's religion for example. I mean he preaches in synagogues, Acts 18, he preached in Greek schools,
so he didn't limit himself only to synagogues, you
know, he went everywhere to bring the gospel, he
didn't limit himself. A Jew would not go into
a Greek school to preach, so you know, he was able to go everywhere. He says he subjected himself to tradition. We know in Acts Chapter 21 for example that he took vows in
order to placate the Jews, and he went to the temple,
he didn't have to take vows, we know that story. The leaders of the church said you know, a lot of people are saying
that you're against Moses and you're teaching against Moses, a lot of the Jews are feeling
you're against their religion and they advised him to take vows and to bring someone to go to the temple to demonstrate that he
wasn't against Moses, he didn't have to do that. He wasn't under compulsion
from a religious point of view to do that
thing, but he did it, he did it in order not to
offend that group of people. He subjected himself to
other people's culture, I mean he took Timothy who
was the son of a Greek man and had him circumcised
to avoid controversy. Did he have to, you know, did
Timothy have to be circumcised no of course not, didn't have to, but in order to be able
to move in the Jewish, you know, culture, to be able to teach, he subjected himself and
his assistant if you wish, to that culture's demands. He didn't have to do these
things, they were all concessions to other people's beliefs, other people's traditions,
other people's particular weaknesses, not his own. He did them so that he
might have access to them and preach the gospel to those people who because of cultural or
religious or personal barriers would not hear the message
of Jesus otherwise. He didn't have to go to
the synagogue on Saturdays, he didn't have to do
that, but he went, why? Because he knew the Jews would be there and he'd have access to them
in order to preach to them and teach them. You know we don't always feel comfortable with other people's views
or religious traditions, but like Paul it's sometimes necessary to set aside our
discomfort and our judgment in order to have an
opportunity to share our faith with them, and I remember once Lisa and I, it was an individual that
we knew and you know, we were trying to share
our faith with them, and they were Jewish. And they asked us if we
wanted to go to the synagogue with them just to experience that, sure. We went, did we have to go? Of course not. Did we have to, you know, submit ourselves to the traditions and the rules that go on if you go to a synagogue
on a Friday night. Well of course, and it
was quite an eye opening experience as well. But we subjected ourselves
to that to maintain that relationship so that we could have the opportunity to share
Christ with that person. A third thing that Paul
talks about is freedom from the demands of the law,
now we're not going to read this too long, Chapter nine, verse 24 all the way to Chapter 10,
but in that long passage from nine to 10 Paul
explains that he's free from the demands of the Law
and now he's under grace. This means that he is now
saved by a system of grace rather than a system of Law. And maybe we need to explain this. A person can be saved meaning
avoid condemnation from God, a person can be saved by the Law, if that person obeys the Law perfectly, because perfect obedience equals salvation and eternal life. If you obey the Law of God, in other words everything in the Old Testament, right, if you obey the law of
God and never break any of the commandments
then you will be saved, you can go to heaven. As a matter of fact Jesus
was raised from the dead because He managed to be
righteous according to the Law. Jesus was not saved by
grace, the resurrection of Jesus was not accomplished
because of grace, the resurrection of Jesus was accomplished because He obeyed the Law perfectly. I Peter 1:22 says, Jesus who committed no
sin nor was any deceit found in His mouth, He
never did anything wrong, He never said anything
wrong, so because of that death could not hold Him. So He was, He was
literally saved from death because He lived the perfect life. Now our problem is that
well we're just not able to obtain salvation in this way, even if we understand the
principle we're not able to accomplish it, we always
sin, Romans three, 23, all of sin, everybody
has sin, and fallen short of the glory of God. So we cannot be saved by the
Law because we can't obey it, even if we know what the
rules are we can't keep them, not consistently anyways. So what happens? God devises a plan to save
us despite our weaknesses, He sends Jesus to obtain
salvation according to the Law on our behalf by living a perfect life and then offering that
perfect life on the cross and then resurrecting
from the dead to prove that God has accepted his
life in exchange for our life. And then God offers us
salvation based on the system of faith in Jesus rather than salvation based on perfect obedience. By the way, if you're
wondering what's the good news of the gospel? The good news is God offers us salvation, eternal life, resurrection
based on a system of believing rather than on a
system of perfect obedience. That's the good news. That's the news that we go, phew, right? Aren't we happy about that, whoa, am I ever glad I'm going to be judged because I believe in the Lord Jesus rather than how good I've been or how much I've been able to achieve as far as perfection is concerned. I don't know about you,
but for me that's good news 'cause when I look back on my life it's pretty spotty, and
more spots than white, let's put it that way. Now you'd think that a guy
who didn't have to be perfect would let things slide, right? But Paul says exactly the opposite. In Chapter nine, scoot down to verse 27. He says, he says but I buffet my body, buffet means I get it into control, he says but I buffet my
body and I make it my slave less possibly after I
have preached to others I myself should be disqualified. So what he has been given
for free is so precious that he works extra hard to preserve it in case he would through
carelessness lose it. So yes, I'm saved by a system
of faith and I respond, how do I respond to God? Well I confess that I
believe Christ and I repent of my sins and I'm baptized,
that's my response of faith, that's how I say to God, I believe. And Paul who's done this, Paul
who's repented of his sins, we know that Paul was baptized, but he doesn't just leave it at that, he says I get my body under control. So in Chapter 10 he uses
the Israelites as an example of those who received great blessings, great opportunities,
but they grew careless and consequently they lost their way. In the case of the Corinthians,
now you're wondering what is all this have to do with you know, the Corinthians, well I'm getting to that. In the case of the
Corinthians he warns them to be careful that their
freedom not lull them into complacency with the world. Yes I've been saved by a system of faith, yes I've responded by
repentance and obedience and baptism, I've done that,
but I continue each day to make a witness of my faith, how? By pursuing obedience to Christ. So Paul is free from the
perfect demands of the Law because of grace, but he becomes a slave to personal holiness and
self-control and purity so that sin will not take
root in his life again and spoil his salvation,
and of course the salvation of other people. How many times have we seen that? Many times, you know, we
read about it in the paper or so on and so forth,
it's always a scandal, a minister somewhere, you know,
runs off with the secretary, abandons his wife and runs
off with the secretary, I shouldn't say secretary,
that's a terrible thing, but you know, has some sort
of public failing like that. And that you know, he's not
any better than any other man, you know other men do those type of things but when it's a minister,
it's news worthy, let's put it this way, you know, the newspapers love to report that. Well the damage there is not
only to this man of course and to the person that
he has gone off with, but also to his family, her
family, so on and so forth, but it also affects the
church, I've seen churches go through terrible trauma
because they trusted this person, they looked up to this
person, they had confidence in this person as a spiritual leader, and that person let them
own and a lot of times they become discouraged themselves. And so Peter here, excuse me, Peter, Paul here is saying I take
special care to get myself under control so that I
don't, you know, fall away, lose my soul, and in doing
that lose the soul of others, I've given up the freedom to
be relaxed about my salvation, I worked at it every day. And then number four,
he says, the final area where Paul gives up his
freedom, his freedom to do what his conscience permits, verses 23, man we have to rush now. This idea is summarized in two places, Chapter 10, verses 23
and 24, so freedom to do what his conscience permits, Chapter 10, 23, he says, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful,
but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own good,
but that of his neighbor. Then I want you to skip down to verse 32, he repeats the idea again,
he says give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks
or to the church of God, just as I also please
all men in all things, not seeking my own profit
but the profit of the many, that they may be saved. So Paul was intelligent,
he was well traveled, he was well educated, he
was mature in the faith. He knew right from wrong, he
could discern the gray areas. If he permitted himself something he did it with a clear conscience, but in this passage he
says that he is free to do what his conscience permits,
but not at the expense of somebody else's conscience. It's a tricky area, we
talked about that last week. And so the boundary that
Paul sets for his conduct has four sides, side number one, that his conduct did not
offend or go against God and his word. Now that's pretty easy, isn't it? What I do, what I permit
myself will not violate God's word, it's a good way of deciding if I should do something or not. The second boundary that he
set is that it did not go against his own conscience. You know, even if the
Bible says I can do it, if in my mind I feel
guilty about doing it, it's always better not to do it. So that was the second
boundary of what he would do. The third boundary that he
put was that it did not go against the conscience of unbelievers. And then the fourth boundary
that he did not offend the church, so he placed restrictions, he had freedom to do what he wanted with the things that were permissible, but he didn't permit himself anything. Or rather I should say,
he didn't permit himself just any old thing, he
had a way of deciding what he would do. He was free to say and do
many things because of his superior knowledge and experience, but he restricted himself
according to the knowledge and the experience of other people, that's a mature idea. Their conscience and
their limit was his limit. This was not fair, was it? I mean it's not fair,
why should I limit myself something that I know I am able to do because this other person
feels kind of bad about it? So it wasn't fair, and it wasn't easy, but it was definitely Christlike. It was definitely Christlike. What did Paul say in Philippians
Chapter two, verse six, about Jesus? Jesus who, although He
existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with
God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied Himself, taking
the form of a bond-servant. Talk about restriction,
I mean Jesus who is the son of God, who is
divine, restricts himself to be in the body, in the
form of a human being. And talk about restrictions,
33 years of res, he restricts himself to time. Here is God who lives outside of time who restricts himself to time. So Paul was free to say
and do as he pleased, but he gave up that freedom
so he could say and do as God pleased for the
sake of other people. So in I Corinthians
Chapter 9 and 10 Paul says that he has basically given up four freedoms that he has as a Christian. Number one, the freedom
to be paid for his work, he was free to receive
a salary for his work, but he didn't take it, because he wanted to be able to preach for free. He didn't want anybody to
say, oh you're just doing this for the money. Number two, the freedom
from tradition and opinions, he was under Christ, he was
not under anybody's tradition or anybody's opinion, but
he gave up that freedom and subjected himself to
other people's traditions and opinions in order
to have access to them and be able to preach the gospel to them. Thirdly, the freedom from
the demands of the Law. And finally, freedom to
follow his conscience. In other words, he subjected himself to the rules of the Law, always again, to be able to reach others
who were under the Law. And freedom from, to
follow his conscience. He restricted himself so
that he wouldn't go past somebody else's conscience
and thus offend them. Now each of these are very
precious personal freedoms that he has willingly given up, but he has done it for two reasons. First of all, so he can
have the opportunity to preach the gospel to as
many people as possible. I mean if somebody invited
me to go preach the gospel and they were a group of
people and they believed that when you had to
worship you had to take off your shoes and put on a
hat, and they invited me to go preach to them. Do I have to take off my shoes and do I have to put on a hat
in order to teach the Bible? Of course, I mean you
show me where it says that anywhere in the Bible, of course not. But if those people invited
me to go to their place wherever it was in order
to teach them the Bible then I would take off my
shoes and I would put on a hat in order to go and have access to them. Now that's a small example,
but that's what Paul is talking about here. And secondly, actually
missionaries do that all the time, don't they? Especially in developing
countries and so on and so forth, or places where they have
primitive civilizations, I mean they start living like the people in order to have access to those people. They don't have to do it. I remember one missionary
once, Bill Bahner was his name, he was in Africa and he was invited to, it was a village and
there was a, they still had the chief system there
in that particular part of the country, and he went to the village and they sat down and they served food, he didn't know what it was, but you know, the Bible says if they
put it in front of you, just eat it, you know? So he's eating it and
he's going, you know, and the chief says, you know,
in that language, you like? You know, uh, it's okay, you know, it tastes like chicken I
guess, you know, whatever. And so Bill says so what is it? And he said rat. And I remember asking Bill,
did you keep on eating? He went no, I kind of pushed it around the plate for a while. But you know, I mean he did what he had to because he wanted access to that chief to be able to share
with him the good news. And very quickly, we got
three minutes left here, he did it also so that nothing he says or nothing that he would
do would become a reason why somebody else would lose their soul. Nobody could say I quit
the church or I stopped following Jesus because of what Paul did. So he limited his activities
so that no one else could stumble. So he became a slave of
other people's customs and weaknesses and
cultures so he could freely offer the gospel and
be freed from any blame for someone else. Now this material gives us
insight into Paul's motives and methods of working with people, but what are the lessons for us today? Two main ones and then we quit, okay? Lesson number one,
everybody's soul is important, not just yours. You know, we tend to circle the wagons when we're safe, but
this is not God's way. God wants every soul to hear the gospel and the thing most important
next to your own soul's salvation should be the salvation of somebody else's soul. Remember that when you have
a chance to confess Christ, when we ask you to
invite people to church, when we take up special
collection for mission works, souls, it's all about preaching the gospel so that people will
have the same salvation and confidence that you have in Christ. And then number two, the
boundary of our freedom is love. We need to remember that
the guiding principle in our dealings with other people, whether they be Christians or not, is always love, not freedom. It's not about what I'm
free to do or not do, it's about what would love
do in a certain situation. You see, in Christ we're
always free to love, and many times the greater the restriction that's placed on us the greater love that God requires from us. Try to see it that way when your movements and your language or
whatever is restricted because of someone else's conscience, don't see that as a restriction, see it as an opportunity
to express your love in Christ for that person. Okay, well that's our
lesson for this morning, we'll be dismissed now. Thank you for your attention
and we'll see you next week.
