Transcription
[Music] The Lord be with you.
Also with you.
If you have a Bible, and I hope you or someone around you does, would you turn with me? We are going to be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 9:es 19 to 23 this morning. And through this series, we've been following the Apostle Paul and his interactions with these Corinthian Christians. That is Christians who are living in the city of Corinth. And what we find in this letter is that Paul is addressing a number of issues going on within this church. We find that the Corinthians actually um have a lot of problems where they're allowing the the city in its its influence to infiltrate the church. And so through numerous chapters, Paul has just been taking one issue at a time um and just addressing them and giving them biblical truth, pointing them back to the gospel and finding their true identity in Jesus Christ.
Well, as we move to chapter 7, he then starts to interact specifically with some questions that they have asked him. So, they've actually been in correspondence. They've been writing back and forth to one another. And so what we find at the beginning of chapter 7 is he starts to answer some of these questions. And in chapter 8, he is moving into a new focus where he was answering a question and we looked at this um a couple of weeks ago about the question about meat sacrificed to idols. And we looked at that and we kind of explained how to us that might not seem like a really practical lesson for us. Like what does meat sacrificed to idols have to do with us as contemporary Christians? like you know are we wrestling with that today? But what we found was that the issue was more about how we as Christians who are free in Christ, how are we to exercise our liberty or our freedom when we are considering our brothers and our sisters and when we all have our own convictions and and consciences. How are we to lovingly relate to one another where maybe a weaker brother or sister may may potentially stumble or have an issue if you are doing something in culture that though you may be free to do it may cause a brother or a sister to be affected or for their faith or their conscience to be wounded wounded or weakened.
And so Paul has been spending some time explaining how though we are free in Christ, though we have true liberty, we are to exercise it through the lens of love that we always defer to our brothers and our sisters through love. And so he spent some time looking at that and then as he continues the thought he then explains how he himself has been doing that for them. How though he is a laborer of the gospel he is worthy of his wages. how he could actually because he's laboring and serving and working for them, he has a right to take a a a a payment, a profit for the time that he has been spending. However, he has given up that right. He's laid aside the right to make a m a living on the gospel through them. And so, he's not even taking a paycheck, if you will, from the Corinthians. Rather, he says, "I will preach the gospel for free. I will serve you for free. Because ultimately the gospel is more important than my status in life, my material gain, what it would profit me. He is more focused on profiting them. And so he was reminding us as the church that we must as Christians keep the gospel above all.
And now today, what we're going to see as we continue in chapter nine is Paul is going to continue this discussion, as we're thinking about rights and freedoms and love a and forsaking, laying aside these rights so that we could advance the gospel, so that people could be saved, that they could they could know Jesus. What we see is he's continuing this discussion by now showing the church how to be an effective witness. Or another way to think of this is Paul is going to show us and remind us how we can be soul winners. And I pray as we think about this this morning, we all would want to be like Paul. That we would want to be an effective witness. That we would want to be soul winners. And so he begins in verse 19 calling us to assume assume a specific role to have a specific attitude about ourselves and our attitude toward others. And in verse 9 it says, "For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win the more."
I just love how we see Paul here showing us that we as witnesses for Christ, we must assume the role of a servant. See, Paul willingly made himself a servant of all men, it says in the text. Now, if we just go back at the very beginning of this letter, we need to remind ourselves who is Paul. He is an apostle of Jesus Christ. He is someone who has seen the risen Lord, been commissioned to a great task. He is the one who established this church. But now as he comes before the Corinthians, he doesn't say, "I'm coming before you as an elder, as an apostle, as someone greater than you." How does Paul come before the Corinthians? a servant. I have come humbly before you. And if that's not shocking enough for you, when you actually look at the Greek word here for servant, it's dulos. And and the actually the the the most literal translation for that word is slave. Paul the apostle comes to the Corinthians and all men and he says, "I have given up my freedom. I have given up my rights. I have become a slave, a dul loss for you. Is that our perspective for one another? Do we actually humble ourselves enough to say, I want to be a servant. I want to be a slave for my brothers, for my sisters, for the sake of the gospel advancing. that though I am free in Christ, I will use my freedom to serve, I will serve freely. See, our freedom should make us willing servants. That's what it should encourage and motivate in us. And that is so countercultural if you really think about it. Because what is the world about? I'm free. I have my rights. So, I'm going to do what I want. I'm going to do what makes me happy. And if you don't like it, tough. But Christian freedom is so different. The way that Paul teaches us here, it's so different. He says, "Your freedom should make you want to serve, to look to others, to be externally focused rather than being internally focused." And so our freedom then calling us to servantthood should keep us from being these status seekers or selfc centered consumers.
I think that we need to hear this because we as Christians sometimes we really want to be the leaders but we don't have a lot of people lining up to be servants. We have so many people that are buying into the lie of the world that say I want to increase my status. I want to be known. I want to be famous. I want people to be influenced by me. I want people to come under my influence. We have these status seekers. And we also have in the church so many self-centered consumers coming into the church saying, "What will they give me? How are they going to bless me today?" But how many of you walking into church today said, "How much can I give to the church today?" How many of you were thinking, "This is how I'm going to actively, intentionally serve Christ and his people today on Sunday morning." Or how many of you are coming in saying, "Well, I hope that they do this song." Or, "Well, I didn't like the way that they did this." Or, "I really wish Zach would have done a different series. He needs to move on. Are you thinking about you, what you like, your preferences? Or are you thinking what is the betterment? What is edifying for the church? What are you thinking about? We once again we have a consumeristic culture where everyone is looking at the church and they're saying, "How do they fit my needs?" rather than how can I plug into a biblical, faithful, Christ-c centered church and now how can I actively serve others and advance the gospel. That should be our mindset because when we look at Christ, he was a servant. Jesus became a slave for us.
I think of the story of Ananas and Safh. It's been on my heart the last couple of days about these two individuals in the book of Acts. You may have be familiar with the story in Acts 5 where they are a part of the early church and we see what happens. God strikes them dead. He judges them, kills them because of his holiness. But what I find interesting about the story is that the reason that they die is because they give a donation to the church, but they lie about how much they actually sold the the land for. and they were bragging about their donation. And I think what we find there is that the reason that they were wanting to give and lie was because they ultimately wanted their peers to see them as amazing and they wanted this influence in the church. And God says that will kill you. I'm fed up with people in the church like that. And I'm fed up with myself when I see myself being more like the Ananas and Safhiv who sometimes I'm thinking how can I better myself positionally or relationally or or or materially whatever the case may be. I can get fed up with my own flesh when I see that because I want to see more of a servant in my life. I want to see Jesus. And and I think we have to ask ourselves this question. Are we better than Jesus? Now you might not say ever. Of course, you would never say you're better than Jesus, but the way that you're living your life sometimes demonstrates that you think that you don't need to be a servant. That Jesus, he serves, but not me all the time. See, listen to Matthew 20:es 26 to 28. Yet it shall not be so among you. But whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. See, Jesus could have come and just been the king. And he could have said, "Everyone needs to bow down right now. Worship me. I'm judging you for your sin." But instead, Jesus comes and starts to serve. He starts to preach good news, glad tidings. He starts to heal people, meeting their felt physical needs, giving them water when they are thirsty, giving them clothing to wear. Jesus cared. He met needs. He was a a servant. And in John 13:14-15, it says, "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done for you. That's what Christ, our king, our master, has done. He lowered himself, humbled himself, washed the feet of sinners, and died on a bloody cross. And that is what we are now called to follow and emulate. We are to walk in the way of Christ in the role of a servant. Hear this. It's a lifestyle. It is not a passing action because any of us can serve for a day. Any of us can do a good work or give a good donation and even maybe twist it and make it for your own profit. But servantthood is a lifestyle. To assume the role of a servant is to say, "I will forsake my rights. I want to love people and I want to glorify God." That's what Paul is showing us here in in the very beginning. We must assume the role of a a servant. That is the attitude of an effective witness.
But more than that, as we serve, we must have an end goal in mind. And that is that we must aim to win souls. Notice here how Paul uses this repeated word where he says win in the text. If you count it, it should be five times in this small section where Paul says, "Win so that I might win." He cared about winning people's souls to find victory for eternal life. And I think of Proverbs 11:30 and and Brother Mike actually sent this to me this week and I just loved how this fit into the text. It says, "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise." I love that pathy phrase. The fruit of the righteous, that is the the result, the outcome, what you are producing of of someone who is living righteously is a tree of life. So what that means is if you are someone who is walking with Christ, if you are promoting righteousness, the fruit of your life is called a tree of life. Reminding you of like the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. You are someone who brings life to others. You bring life and goodness, righteousness to the world. And then on on the next part of that, it says, "And he who wins souls is wise." true wisdom, the fear of the Lord, how you give God glory is that you are determined to save souls. Now, as I say that, I understand we are not the ultimate savior. It is God who brings the increase. Jesus is the savior, but we are the ones who partake in this work. And we do in some sense win souls. We must seek to win souls. That is wisdom. That is how we bring life to this world. We introduce people to Jesus. And so our service here as we are are called to the great commission, right? Matthew 28:19, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. That's why we are here as the church. We are here to win souls. We are here to make disciples of all the nations and baptize them in the name of our triune God. That's why you exist, Christian. Your aim is to win souls.
And as I say this once again, we are to win souls, not arguments. Remember that balance earlier with the Corinthians who love their knowledge. They were puffed up with the knowledge, but they were lacking love. Here's the thing. You could win an argument about faith and theology, and you can show how you are smarter than that lost person, but if you win the argument, and if you lose the soul, then you have missed the mission. We have to understand that we are ultimately wanting to win the person, the heart. We want them to be captured and captivated by the glory and majesty of Christ. That's what we are called to do. That is our mission. So I think of 1 Peter 3 15-16. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. See, we are ready. We are called to be ready. We are called to seek to win, right? But this is not coercion. This is not not manipulation. We are to evangelize, to share the gospel, to introduce people to Jesus, we are to do this with meekness and fear because ultimately the way that we treat these eternal souls that are before us, God is viewing this. And we will have to give an account for how we treated these people. You may have been the smartest theologian in the room and you may have disproved every single atheist that you ever encountered, but if you don't win any souls, I don't think God's going to be pleased. You can win the argument, but if you don't win the soul, you are missing the goal. And so this reminds us that you as a believer, as a Christ follower, you will either be a bridge or a barrier to Jesus. Right now, which one do you think you were better categorized and defined as? Are you a bridge? Are you that on-ramp that is leading people to know Jesus and and get the the biblical conception of who he is? Or are you a barrier? Maybe it's a barrier by not sharing the good news of Jesus. Maybe you're not talking to people about your faith. Or maybe it's the way that you're living your life. Maybe you aren't living righteously. And so therefore, your fruits aren't a tree of life. Maybe you aren't bearing good fruit. And so when people hear you're a Christian, you are their excuse for not being in church that Sunday. You cannot be a barrier to Christ.
And as we think once again about evangelism, we have to understand it is so much more than sharing facts about Jesus. What evangelism ultimately is, it's an invitation to truly know him. That's what we are called to do. We want to introduce people to our Lord. Do you know how thrilling that really is? Sometimes we just miss the great commission. Why it truly is great. Do you know a man who was God? who walked on the earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for your sins, rose from the dead, conquered sin, shame, and death, now has ascended to the right hand of the father who is at the throne right now, who reigns, who has all authority and power and now has given you his spirit and has called you to go. Do you live like that? Because if you truly believe that, if you live like that and then you want to introduce and I know him, I hear his voice. He is leading me every single day with his spirit. That should encourage and motivate us to go. We want people to be introduced to Jesus because there is nothing better than knowing Christ. For those who really know Christ, they know this is true. There is nothing better than knowing in Christ. And so our aim is to win souls so that they may know Jesus too. our goal, the reason we become a servant is that they would see Jesus and know Jesus.
But the final thing that I want to draw from this text is so not only do we see that he assumes the role of a servant is his aim to to win souls that he he wins these individuals, but it's also the way that he approaches the mission. See, he doesn't just seek to win them with arguments, but we see that he adapts for the mission. And that's kind of the heart of the whole text of what Paul is saying is how has he been effective? Well, once again, he he's humbled himself. He's he's got the goal in mind, but it's that he adapts for the mission. Paul was willing to sacrifice his preferences, his background, his comforts to reach other people. And so that's why he says, "To the Jew, I became a Jew. To one that was of the law, I became under the law. That is to to the to the gentile. I became a gentile. To the weak, I became the weak. What he says is I am not holding on to my preferences and comforts. I will forsake all of these things. I am going to adapt. I am going to be flexible so that I will be effective in evangelism. Effective evangelism requires both adaptability and flexibility. In Colossians 4:es 5 and 6 says, "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one." See, we are called to be seasoned with grace and salt. And when we go to a lost world, we must be able to meet people where they are. And for us to be able to do that, you have to know and be involved in culture. See, you can't be this Christian who says, "I'm just going to stay in my little Christian bubble where it's safe and all my people that I spend time with are all just saints and we're all going to just enjoy our time in this luxury resort." Rather, we have to get out and we need to go to tell other people. And to do that, once again, it's not so much how much you know, but they must know how much you care. And so, if you don't truly take time to get to know people, and if your first interaction and conversation with them is, well, here's why you're a sinner, and this is why you need Jesus, that's not going to win very many souls. That might win some. Some might be in that right position to hear that right in that moment. But many other times, you actually need to get to know them. You need to to get on their level. You need to speak their language. Don't use all the the Christianes sometimes. And what we need to do is we need to get to become Jew to the Jew, Greek to the Greek, weak to the weak. We need to make sure that we are adapting. This is called gospel flexibility here. And what that would mean then is that we we change our methods. We may change our models at times, but we will never change the actual message. That's the difference. The gospel does not change. Who Jesus is does not change. We do not compromise. We contextualize. That is the difference here. And if you want to be effective, you must be able to do this. I know so many churches, so many ministries that they will fail because their argument is, well, we've always done it this way or it worked in the past and so we're going to just keep on doing it and eventually God is going to bless it. We have to be like Paul and say, "Okay, this does not work. How can we be more effective? Let's go back to the drawing board. Let's seek the spirit. Let's look to scripture. How can we be more intentional with our culture, with the lost? What are they concerned about? What are the questions they are asking? What do they value? And how can we then use our message, the good news of the gospel to infiltrate that world? That's how we are to do it." And that's exactly what Paul did number of times when he went to the uh the Jews. He circumcised Timothy. He didn't have to. There were other times where he would take a vow or do a specific ceremony, right? Because of his love for these people. But there were other times where he was with Gentiles, with Greeks, and he wouldn't be bound by the law. Now once again he says not the law of God meaning he would never sin never be immoral but he wouldn't be bound by certain Jewish customs whenever he was with others because he didn't want to be a barrier a stumbling block for them. So he would adapt, he would be flexible, he would contextualize so that the gospel could be heard. And so we need to hear this this morning that the gospel is offensive enough. Paul says that it is the offense of the cross. People will be offended by the gospel message. But we don't want our character and our lifestyle to be a stumbling block to be a hindrance from people giving the gospel a fair hearing. And so we need to then share the gospel but we must adapt as we share the gospel. Meet people where they are.
And the final reason I say this is because Jesus when we look to his prime ultimate example, he came to us where we were. This is not an abstract concept that Paul is talking about. This is the heart of the gospel message is that our God did not stay up high and mighty on his throne and say, "All right, I see you guys down there. You guys to get it in get it in shape over here." He says, "I'm going to come down and dwell among you." John 1:14 says, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth." See, our God did not stay on the mountaintop waiting for us to try to climb up this infinite feet. Our God comes down the mountain in the person of Jesus Christ. Our God dwelt among the people. He became a Jew to the Jews. He also went to Samaria to the woman at the well. He will meet us in our Samaras. And and we know many of us who have encountered and know Christ, that's already happened. He met you at a church pew, a church altar. He met you in a prison cell. He met you in addiction. He met you in a broken home. He met you on your way to work. He is finding us and speaking to us on our level. He's not expecting all of us to be a pastor on day one. He says, "Wherever you're at, that's where I'm going to go." The good shepherd will seek out and save that which was lost. And so, we must follow Christ's example and not so be high and mighty and say, "Well, this is the way that we as a church are going to do it, and we're not going to lower stoop down. I'm not going to adapt for the world. No, we must do what Christ has done. Keep the message pure and holy, but go to a world and be willing to adapt and mold and shape and save and win souls. So Paul, he shows us how do we want to be an effective witness? How do we want to be a soul winner? If you truly want people to know Jesus, assume the role of a servant. Aim to win souls and be willing to adapt for the mission.