First Corinthians 9:14-21 I do all things for the sake of the Gospel
1 Corinthians 9:14-21 · Mike Doyle · Jan 24, 2021
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 42
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261921376273

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today we want to talk about, we're still in First Corinthians chapter nine and we're working our way through verses that have to do with Paul's dealing with his freedom and freedom in general. And we talked last time about how Paul had worked, hold on a second. It's interesting that my slides and those slides don't match up, but that's okay. I couldn't even get my printer to work last night, so.

Anyway, do you not know that those who perform the sacred services eat of the food at the temple, and those who attend regularly at the altar have their share? And this word share has to do with its present tense, they're always doing it, and it's a routine, it's an ongoing practice that they do.

And it has to do with all of those that attend at the altar and it's a Jewish custom and it also is a custom that God gave to the Jews and it's also in non-Jewish religious practices, they did the same thing. So others refers to the teachers like Apollos and that took in people like Apollos and gave them shelter and that kind of thing. And 14 says, so also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel. So that's, what's interesting about that is that it's from the Lord himself in terms of where the direction comes. So anybody who is involved in the work of the Lord can expect to have his, to be supported by those who he works for. And as we talked all about that last week. Now this week, we're gonna talk.

But Paul says in verse 15, I have not used none of these things, all of these privileges and rights that he had, he didn't use them. And he says, I'm not writing these things so that it will be done so in my case, for it would be better for me to die than to have any man make a boast, boast an empty one. And I was looking through some of the other translations and actually the New Living Translation translates this, it gets the idea across a little better. He says, yet I have never used any of these rights.

And I'm not writing this to suggest that I want to start doing it now. In fact, I would rather die than lose my right to boast about preaching without charge. Kind of an interesting statement. And he keeps going back and forth. He keeps talking about, well, I have the rights, but I'm not going to use them.

I can eat and drink, but I'm not going to do it. I can take a wife. but I'm not gonna do that either. Or I can get paid for, I should be getting paid for being a servant to you, but I'm not gonna do that either. Or you indulge yourself, but I don't indulge myself at all.

So he's trying to get across the idea, look, this kind of thing shouldn't be forced on anybody. anybody who teaches or anybody who's in a group that is being taught. Others have the rights and they can share it and they can use it, but I'm just not gonna do it.

And he doesn't imply by his not doing it that others shouldn't abstain also. He's just saying I'm not gonna do it. And he's gonna give a reason here in a minute. It's a right application of the refusal to exercise a right. The right does not force itself upon others. So if I don't do it, that doesn't mean you're not supposed to do it. It should be supported by an overriding consideration, though, that Paul's going to talk about. He doesn't want any charge. He doesn't want any hindrance to the gospel at all. So the refusal to exercise a right is relative to a given situation.

And I think in all the epistles, and translate the epistles to the towns that they were in, this is the only place he says that. It wasn't applicable in Philippi, because in Philippians 4, he says, you yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone. You're the only one that did it. For even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once and more than once covered my needs.

So it's interesting that the Philippian church, which was one of the poorest churches, gave him the greatest support. And a church like Corinth, which is a wealthy place, he wouldn't accept any money from them. And I find it interesting, I would think in my mind it would be the other way around.

The refusal of a right is never to be used to manipulate, or manipulation has no place in Christian service. Refusal to exercise a right must be rooted in the deepest conviction. He didn't want his readers to interpret that what he said on this subject is a veiled request for support. Paul's not trying to make the Corinthians feel guilty about non-supporting him. Paul's not saying no in order that ultimately they'll say yes.

I have a personal experience with this. Growing up a Catholic, you know, the only reason that you contributed to your local church so you could get your name on the roster at the end of the year that said, Mike Doyle contributed 20 bucks, or the Doyle family contributed $2,000. I always told them, you won't see my name there because I'm listed under the A's, anonymous. So I become a Christian, I'm feeling my way, trying to figure out how it all goes, and I meet Miles Stanford, and I'm impressed with what he's doing, so I decide, well, for the first time in my life, I want to support somebody.

So I sent him a check. He sent it back to me. I thought, well, that's pretty clever. So I called him up on the phone. I said, Miles, look. I've been a salesman and a negotiator my whole life, and this is a pretty good trick you're pulling. He said, it's not a trick. I don't want you to support me. I said, why not? He said, well, I want you to be directed by the Lord to do it, not because you think you ought to. I said, okay. So I went a while, and then I found other ways to help him and support him.

Refusal to exercise this right doesn't diminish the right in itself, and it doesn't establish a pattern. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, this right of support is there. So this is legitimate stuff he's talking about in terms of whether you should support those people who teach and walk with you and work with you in terms of your spiritual growth. So he's carefully asserted his rights. In remaining in the verses of the chapter, he's going to show how he personally had used his rights in the Church of Corinth.

He had turned them into an occasion for sacrificing himself in the interest of Christ and the interest of Christ's gospel. One has said, great statement, this privilege is transformed in his hands into another kind of a privilege altogether. And that other kind of a privilege is the privilege of sacrificing himself for Christ and for his service. That's a privilege to do that. What a servant of the Lord does is important. How he does it is equally important.

Paul had the rights of an apostle. He was free to insist on them if he chose to do so. Paul had the right of support of the Corinthians. He also had the freedom not to accept their support. He had made his decision to support himself so he could preach freely and notice that the Lord didn't require that he do that. It was his decision. So he was confident in it and anyone who makes a sacrifice for the welfare of others is confident in what they do. His relinquishing his rights to support corresponds to giving up his right, like Roger talked about in a previous chapter, he gave up his right to eat in a pagan temple, why?

Because it didn't support the gospel. He didn't want his brother to stumble because of his behavior. All right, it's working. So he says, again, I've used none of these, and I'm not writing to you, but at the end of the verse, he says, have any man make me boast an empty one? He gave up the privilege to enjoy a higher privilege, as we just said. So he can say, I've used none of these things.

What you find out is that Paul's a lover, and divine love cares for others to the point that it sacrifices. He is a living example of what he preached. One of the rare people that really is a living example of what he preached. There were rites and their graces does not forget them for others and he doesn't benefit himself from them because of grace. He even goes so far as to repudiate such thoughts in the present situation with the Corinthians.

It was living Christ, so to feel and act, who taught that was more blessed to give and receive. Well, we hear that saying a lot. If you're giving, you know that it is more important. The sin nature and the world says the idea is to get yourself in a position where you can receive as much as possible. But you discover in the Christian walk that giving is really a much cooler thing. It's much more rewarding.

So. So in this context here, he's talking about his right to boast or his ability to boast because he has sacrifice. But he says it's important to see that to preach is not a thing to be boasting of. If you have the privilege to preach, it's not a boasting situation. It's an indebtedness.

It's a passion that the Lord Jesus, who calls one and conferred a gift for that very purpose. Anyone who's a teacher. of God's word knows that it's a calling. You don't just, you know how we think, well, gee, so-and-so got saved and they're a teacher. Boy, they'd make a great Sunday school teacher.

Not necessarily, the call has to come. And if you have the call, there's nothing to boast about. And anything that the Lord would call, where he would call you to serve, because it's the call, it's not a boasting situation. So he says, whoops, I went the wrong way. For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion. For woe is me if I don't preach the gospel.

In 1 Corinthians 9.16, in the New King James, he said, for I preach the gospel I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me. Woe is me if I don't preach the gospel.

And the question has to be asked, which is a great question that Macaulay asked, can Paul boast about something he's forced to do? Does it sound like he's forced to preach? Yeah, he is. When Paul said he has nothing to boast about because he's under compulsion, he does mean that he can't boast about something that he's obligated to do. He could not take justifiable pride in the fact that he preached the gospel, even though it involves sacrificing for the benefit of others. He had made those sacrifice in compliance or obedience to the Lord. And here's in Acts 26, 15.

And I said, who are you, Lord? This is when he hits the ground, when Christ appears to him. And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet for this. Think about this. For this purpose, I've appeared to you to appoint you a minister and a witness, not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things which I will appear to you, rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles to whom I'm sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, and that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me."

This wasn't a suggestion. This was a command from the God of the universe. And Paul didn't have any trouble receiving it or accepting it. He had no choice about the preaching of the gospel. Not at all. As he did about how he would preach it, he could make all the decisions in the world about that, but the fact that he had to preach the gospel, he had to do it.

Because it's a divine destiny. He would be in serious trouble with the Lord if he didn't preach the gospel. And oh yeah, so would we if we had the call. How terrible for me if he didn't preach the gospel. If however he speaks of glorying, he's at once careful to state that he's not seeking to glorify himself because he preached the gospel and he did so freely.

It's an obligation, a duty to him who was a called one and conferred the gift for this very purpose. So not only does he have a calling, but he's gifted to do it. It's therefore a necessity laid upon all called ones, not an office to honor or claim, and it's not a right. I can't claim the right to be a teacher just because I feel like I wanna be one. It has to be a calling. It's not an office. And it's not an office to be honored. It's a compulsion. Imagine the Apostle Paul saying, I have a compulsion.

We'd have to send him down to the shrink if he said that here. Christ has the right because it's his vineyard. He has the right to send laborers into his field. He has the right to do that. And this makes it a true necessity laid on him who is sent. One of the arguments that Constable makes here is that the church, a local church, does not have the right to appoint somebody a teacher. Only Christ has that right.

So when Roger and I pray all the time about teachers and people who will come and take our place eventually, What we're doing is we're looking around and waiting for the Lord to raise somebody up. Somebody He's called and appointed. And when they're there, we'll see them. We will see them. We can't say, well, we're gonna pick you and you're gonna be the next guy who has to come up here. It doesn't work that way.

You can't make a decision to go to seminary so you can get a job. in a church. That's not the way the Lord works with his vineyard. He calls and he enables. So according to scripture, as Constable says, the church never sends anybody to preach the gospel. It's the Lord Jesus who does it. Relations are falsified by such pretensions. And again, he sends laborers into the field.

I think that years and years ago, some of you remember the name Steve DuPuy, and he's a fellow that we still support. He used to come to church here on Sunday as a single guy, worked for an oil company. I think he was a landman. And the Slavic gospel people came through church and I think Merriman was the pastor at that time.

Got up and got, I don't know, 20 minutes to talk about what their mission was. He got the call right then. and he left as a single guy, and he finds himself in Belarus for years, and now he's in Moscow, and he's in charge of seven time zones. God, can you imagine having that job? Oh yeah, okay. You're in charge of spreading the gospel for seven time zones across Russia. That was a call, and he went.

So in this case, Paul says, for woe is to me if I don't preach the gospel. I think it's an important part. Then he makes another interesting point. In verse 17, he says, if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward. But if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.

If he preached the gospel willingly, he would receive a reward. But the reward would be from the Lord. And I spent some time thinking about this and reading about it. What is the reward that, I mean, okay, so they offer him, wherever he's preaching the gospel, they offer to pay him.

Well, that's not really a reward from the Lord. What's the most prized thing that any of us can have as a reward from the Lord. You know what I think it is? It's personal, close intimacy with Him. He's the pearl of inestimable value. So here's Paul voluntarily preaching the gospel and he gets a reward. What does he get? He gets a closer walk, a closer fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

But what if he does it unwillingly? He says, Well, gee, if I would not receive a reward, I don't receive a reward if I don't do it willingly, but I still have to do it. Isn't that interesting? Simply doing his duty as a steward or the manager of a household, he has to preach. If I preach the gospel against my will, I still have a responsibility to do it.

First Corinthians 4, one says, let a man regard us as in this manner. Now think about, this is how he viewed himself. As servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. In this case, moreover, it's required of a steward that he be found trustworthy. So is it possible to be a steward of the word and do it unwillingly, but I still have to do it. I have to be found trustworthy because I got the call of the Lord. He seems to indicate that that's the case.

However, he must preach the gospel, and that means he can't glory in it. You see how that fits together? You can't glory in the gospel because it's a charge from Christ. If, on the other hand, he preaches the gospel against his own choice, he still has the stewardship, he still has the responsibility. A stewardship has been entrusted to him to preach, and whether he did so willingly or not, he was responsible to carry out the work entrusted to him. His reward would be for doing his appointed work, but it's not for doing his appointed work. The reward is if he does it willingly.

Isn't that interesting? I like the verse that says, it's God who causes you both to do and to will of his good pleasure. So I thought some more about this. And I thought, well, I wonder what, has God called every one of us in this room and on Zoom today, given us a responsibility that we're to do willingly? Answer, yeah, you know what it is? We are to spend time in his word.

That's not a suggestion. It's not a, well, if you get around to it, that's great. But studying the word of God is the same kind of responsibility. Even if you don't wanna do it, it's still responsibility. But if you do it willingly, guess what? There's a reward. We talk a lot about intimacy with Christ. Well, part of that is studying his word and spending time in his word willingly. If it's a grind for you, if it's something that you think, ah, I gotta do this, you still have the responsibility to study his word, but you don't get the reward. Isn't that interesting? That the Lord would work it that way.

So Paul says, well, what then is the 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. So what's the reward? I think his reward for preaching the gospel willingly was a privilege of preaching it without cost to his hearers. That's a huge privilege to have, that you can preach God's word at no cost, at no charge.

He did not use the rights as belonging to him, but he used it according to his own will without regard to the directions from the Lord. It's gonna be free to you, Corinthians. that in preaching the gospel, he gave up his rights so that the gospel might be without charge, which is what he did. And there's a pleasure in choosing not to receive compensation for what he's compelled to do. My pay is the pleasure of refusing pay, is what he's saying.

So this phrase, to make full use, if you look at the King James, I don't know how the King James sometimes comes up with words like they do, but where it says not to make full use, King James substitutes one word and they call it abuse. That doesn't really grab the meaning here. The force of the word is to use as one that has possession of a thing, using it as he likes, as his own. That's what John Darby says.

Paul was sent by the Lord to preach. And it was ordained by the Lord that he had a right to be supported. He did not, however, use that right. He thought of Christ, and he thought of Christ's glory. And he so used or refrained from using his right according as he judged he had the mind of the Lord in carrying out this service in a way that would be best for the glorying of Christ.

I think as a believer, I'm not really settled down or comfortable with what I'm doing. My motivation is I'm interested in only the glory of Christ. That comes from the intimacy. So I don't think we go to the Lord and say, Lord, make me willing, but I must say that I've gone to the Lord a lot of times in circumstances I'm in and say, Lord, I don't wanna do this, whatever it is. Make me willing. And the willingness is your glory. And that's a really cool thing.

We all face circumstances and situations where we don't really wanna do what we know the Lord would have us do. make me willing. Paul was rewarded for preaching the gospel willingly, and willingly was the privilege of preaching it without cost to his hearers. So we could say this choice may seem as though it was Paul's decision rather than a reward for the Lord, but he viewed it as a privilege that came from God himself. If you look at 2 Corinthians 11, 7, Paul is gonna say, or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached the gospel of God without charge to you? He says, I robbed other churches by taking wages from them to serve you.

And when I was present with you and was in need, I was not a burden to anyone. For when the brethren came from Macedonia, they fully supplied my need. And in everything, I kept myself from being a burden to you, and I'll continue to do so. As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be stopped in the regions of Achia.

Why? Because I do not love you. God knows that I do. But what I am doing, I will continue to do so that I may cut off the opportunity of those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the manner about which we are boasting. He's boasting about the fact that he can give the gospel for free, that he can do that. The refusal of compensation is only one instance, though, of what Paul does in his life. He surrendered a lot of rights in other areas that he considered important when it came to proclaiming the glory of the Lord Jesus. So then he says in the next verse, verse 19, he says, and though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all that I might win.

Paul refused compensation, and this gave him a special kind of freedom. He didn't owe anything to anybody. The word from is a Greek word ek, which means out from. I'm free from out of all men. Paul is free then to choose what he would be in the relationship to men. I think that's why, this is the reason why Miles Stanford sent that check back to me. Freedom. Freedom.

There's something that has to do with, well, if somebody's supporting you, you probably have to listen to him more than the one who isn't. You have to be free to preach the gospel because that's the most important part. But Paul says, look, I choose to be a slave, which is a doulos, a bondsman, to men with view of winning them, in a sense that the slave, in this sense, the slave controls the master. Do you see how that works? If I am free to do whatever I want, but I make myself a slave to you, to serve you, I, as the slave, control you, who's the master, because I do it that way.

So he chose not to any pay for his ministry in Corinth. He was free from the restrictions that support might impose. This left him free to become a slave to all. He's not obligated to anybody. So he can decide who he's gonna be a slave to and who he isn't.

And here's the reason. that I might win the more. But when you dig into that a little bit, you find out that it isn't the more he's talking about, it is the greatest number possible. I'm gonna make every sacrifice there is so I can save the greatest number possible, the whole mass that we could reach by this means. And then he starts to delineate it, and this is where the verses get a little complicated. He says, and to the Jew I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews.

To those who are under the law, and you'll notice I've scratched out the word the before the word law, because in the Greek, the definite article's not there. This is law principle we're talking about. Though not being myself under law, that I might win those who are not under law.

So these verses are giving specific examples that Paul adopted himself to those who he wished to win. Adjustments, adaptations can be made with the gospel without compromise as long as you don't compromise the gospel itself. How did Paul accommodate the Jews? Well, in the three verses that I've put up there, Acts 16, he circumcised Timothy so that he could take Timothy into the synagogue and Timothy could be helping him and serving, spreading the word. And Acts 17 is the story about Paul being in Athens and he's going to teach to the multitudes, and he's looking around for an example, and as he walks by all these gods, he finds that there's a statue to the unnamed god. So he takes that, and he said, you know, you guys have a loyalty to a god who doesn't have a name. Well, I'm here to tell you who he is. So he adapts to use. He becomes all things.

And then Acts 21, 20, and I've wondered about this, and I think I got it answered, a study in these verses. You know, Paul goes back to Jerusalem, and he takes a vow with some young men, and he shaves his head and goes through this whole thing. Why did he do that? He did it to accommodate the Jews so he could tell the gospel to those young men. He wasn't reverting back under the law in any sense.

He was going with them so he could give them the gospel. So he wants to make the gospel receptive rather than antagonistic. I find sometimes that I personally am trying to tell the gospel to somebody and all I do is antagonize them. Because it becomes, well, it's my way or the highway. or like somebody sent me a wrapper thing last week that has to do with if you don't accept Christ, you're gonna go to hell. That's really what it says. Well, that's not very appealing.

Paul would do whatever it took to make the gospel receptive under any circumstance without compromising the gospel itself. He himself, though, was not under any kind of a law. Notice that he says, to those who are under the law is under the law, though not being myself under law.

So that got me intrigued about, well, what is he talking about? The salvation of the Jews and especially the salvation of the Gentiles was his objective. If he had to observe a Jewish law in order to get the ear of a Jew, he would do it. Could I go, I'm being raised in a Catholic church, should I go to the Catholic church so I could go after some of those Catholics? Well, maybe, but I haven't had the calling, so I don't wanna go in a Catholic church ever again.

Anyway. So when he's with the Gentiles, he behaves like the Gentiles. The reference to law is kind of confusing, but if you go back and look at Romans 2.14, he says, for when the Gentiles who do not have the law, Mosaic law, do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law are a law unto themselves. So what Paul does is he adapts himself to that mindset without agreeing with it, so that he can talk to the Gentiles about Christ and grace. Those who, though not being without law to God, but under the law of Christ. Verse 21. Verse 21, which I'm gonna mention now, and then I'll go to the verse. to those who are without laws, without law, those not being without law of God, but under the law of Christ, though not being without law, that I might win those who are without law.

Now, what's interesting about this is that I went back to Romans 2.12, which I think the basis of everything for God's relationship with humanity is in those first three chapters of Romans. In this verse, he says, for all have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

If I make up my own rules of behavior and conduct, you know, God is gonna come to me and say, you know those rules that you made up for you? I'm gonna judge you based on those rules. Because the premise is you can't survive and be righteous and be acceptable to me under your own rules or my rules or anybody else's rules. Rules and laws are not the way.

So I took it upon myself to contrast Romans 6.14 and this verse 21.

Romans 6.14 says that sin won't have dominion over me any longer because I'm not under law, I'm under grace. And I just read what this verse says. And I wanted to explain how does Paul get the idea of though not being under the law of God, but under the law of Christ? I think, and I think William Newell agrees with me, that that's not a good way to say that I live under the law of Christ. And I explained it this way. I was at my doctor this week, and he said, on your sermon on Sunday, are you gonna talk about your hand? I said, yeah, but I'm not gonna mention your name. Here's how it goes.

My left hand is perfectly connected to my brain. And my brain tells my left hand what to do, and it never argues. It just does it, because it wants to. I injured my right arm and my right hand, so the lines of communication are broken, or damaged, so that my right hand won't respond to what my brain wants it to do. And so, The thing about a law system, a legalist would say, well, I've got to get some rules so that the right hand can follow those rules to make itself acceptable to the brain so it can obey the brain. Does that make sense?

My left hand has no rules. My left hand willingly, under grace, does whatever my brain wants to do. I, as a believer, am not under any kind of a law system. I am under a total grace system. I respond to the Lord Jesus Christ because I'm one with Him, just like my hand is one with my body and my head, just like I'm in law to Christ. I can't do anything other than that. Most Christians walk around with damaged hands trying to figure out how to get this hand and get the rules right in this hand so it can respond to the brain.

It's got to come from the other way. and you have to let it go. It's like, he said to me, well, you use your left hand a lot, and your right hand, as it comes around, it's starting to help your left hand function. I said, that's right. He said, well, the goal is, is to get your right hand dominant so that your left hand will support your right hand. That's gotta come from your brain. I thought, oh, well, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. I read a couple of things that Newell said.

When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9.21, under the law of Christ, that he was in law to Christ, the Greek word anomos signifies that blessed control by the Holy Spirit proceeding from Christ as the head, which corresponds to the control of our natural bodies by our physical heads. This, of course, is the very opposite of being under law. in the sense that to speak of a believer being under the law to Christ would be no more true than to say that your hand has a set of external rules by which it obeys your head and seeks to render itself pleasing to you. No, your hand is in lawed to your head in that it is one with your head. Your spirit dwells in every member of your body.

And the head intelligently directs every member. So, summing this up, I hope, they're not leaving because they don't like what I'm saying. He told me he was gonna leave, so. So Paul says, to the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have to become all things to all men that I may by all means save some. Just a few comments on this.

Who are the weak? And we studied it in Romans 14 and 15. Basically the weak are those who have extremely sensitive consciences in the area of practice such as the Jews had. The more feeble, the more impotent they're without strength to serve the living God.

Paul would not wound the scruples of the feeblest believer so that he might win them to Christ. To all I am become all things, that I might by any means save some. His self-sacrifice, in faith, which had only Christ as its object, and the bringing of every soul within one's reach into contact with his love.

That's what he's trying to do. And he's, from a method standpoint, he has found the answer. He's free. And he's free to become a slave. For what purpose? So that he might serve the living God. He would become all things to all people that he might save some.