Our Sermons

Bible Passage: 1 Corinthians 9:7-12,19-23
Pastor: Pastor Horton
Sermon Date:  October 20, 2024

Six weeks.  Six weeks say the experts of working out and you will at that point see physical “gains.”  And maybe those gains you wish to achieve are muscle growth, increased strength, or in improved endurance.  It’s usually around this time of year as I enjoy the apple crumbles and the pumpkin-bars and the Halloween candy, that I realize it would serve me well to be exercising a bit more so that the gains are good and healthy.

As we talk about gains this morning, the Apostle Paul addresses the body of Christ.  What are healthy gains?  We know from Scripture that Jesus is the head of his body and that he directs and oversees we, his members.  How does Jesus’ body the church, make gains?  Paul tells us that gains don’t come by ways that serve ourselves first, but rather that give up ourselves for our God and for others.  Gaining for God by giving up ourselves?  That sounds strange to our human reasoning.

A little context would be helpful as we hear God speak through his Word.  Paul is addressing the church in Corinth.  He preached and taught there, but also in order to help make a living, he also was able to work at his trade which happened to be tent-making.  I don’t know how much leather tent makers made back then but it doesn’t seem to me to be super lucrative.  But it allowed him to live and work.  And so Paul, sacrificed his pastoral right to make a living from that church in order to serve them with the gospel, that Jesus body the church might have spiritual gains.

That’s why our reading from 1 Corinthians today begins with those examples of a soldier not fighting for free but at an expense, a vineyard owner being entitled to its fruit, and a flock owner drinking the milk of profit.  To help make this point clear, he even references instructions from the Old Testament: “you shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out grain.”  Have you ever seen an ox?  They are big creatures with a big appetite.  The ox back then would sometimes drag a sled over wheat or barley to separate the kernels from their hulls.  The ox would want to eat those kernels, and their owners would muzzle them to prevent this from happening.  “Don’t do this” financially we’re told to workers, soldiers, animals, or even to those who serve the church.  Paul understood Jesus’ words in Luke 10:7 that, “a worker deserves his wages.”

And yet in Corinth, Paul gives up his rights when it comes to “fair pay.”  He says in verse 12, “we did not use this right.  Instead, we endure everything so as not to cause any hindrance for the gospel of Christ.”  This lack of an income was not how Paul normally operated, but in this circumstance, he thought it best.  And why would that be?  Consider the Corinthian’s challenges as they struggled with both moral and ethical issues.  The church suffered from cliques within its walls as members preferred one pastor over another pastor and in the process, were distracted from following Jesus.  From outside of the congregation, the world accused Christianity of being foolishness, and false teachers came to town in order to win attention for themselves and make money at the expense of the message.

Paul’s purpose was different.  Paul’s ministry was clear.  Paul’s goals were spelled out before the eyes of all in this letter.  He was there to share the gospel of salvation in Jesus.  He was there to gain souls and strengthen the body of Christ.  He was there to remove barriers that kept people from hearing about Jesus.  And, here in Corinth, he did not want one of those barriers to involve him being viewed as some sort of money-grubbing-fly-by-night preacher.  He wanted to be known as God’s servant who is sincere, authentic, honest, and humble.  And none of this was done for his own sake or for his own glory but to clear the path between souls in need and their Savior Jesus.

To best gain souls for Jesus and his body the church, Paul would willingly forfeit his rights.  We like our rights, don’t we?  We fight for our rights.  We argue over how best to define our rights.  We vote for the politicians who promise to defend the rights we hold most dear.  We cherish our rights.  Rights are a big deal to you and to me Americans.  And yet we find Paul with his Roman citizenship rights and his special hand-picked by God rights and his professional preacher in Corinth rights, moved by the gospel, willing to set them all aside if it meant clearing a path for God to gain souls for salvation.

And that fits with God’s instructions for us as believers.  The gospel that saves souls comes first.  We aren’t to insist on our ways first.  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  “Carry each other’s burdens.”  “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”  “if anyone forces you to go with them one mile, go with them two.”  This is what God would have us do.  Not fight for your right to the death, but follow your Lord of love in how you show love to others that we might share in eternal life.  “All things to all people” for the sake of the saving gospel.

That’s hard for us to do.  We love our personal freedoms, our independence, and our ways, sometimes even desperately hanging on to our selfish ways.  We don’t always look to the needs of others first.  We aren’t always ready to help and be a friend to them.  We won’t always set aside our wants to clear a path for them to hear the gospel.  We sometimes, quite frankly, see people not as brothers and sisters in Christ’s body of believers, and not as hurting souls in desperate need of their Savior, but we see people as a burden, a chore, and inconvenience to us and to our lives.  And we may even gripe, complain, and roll our eyes at those around us.

Thanks be to God that our Savior didn’t treat us with such distain!  We have proven with our endless list of sins to be utterly unlovable with no right to stand before God.  Yet Christ Jesus went forward setting aside heavenly glory, becoming like us as our brother, and going through those humbling steps to fulfill prophecy after prophecy in taking our every single sin to his cross and paying for them all there.  The shame and guilt and failures that belonged to us are now wiped clean away by Jesus, who suffered God’s wrath in our stead.  He served us all by making himself the least of all and slave to all.  And now he reigns in exaltation reassuring us that through the forgiveness he freely gives to us, we too will be with him and go through death into life forever with him in heaven.

This was accomplished entirely by the love of God.  The same love that Paul received also motivated him in the decisions he made as he served Jesus.  He says, “Although I am free from all, I enslaved myself to all so that I might gain many more.”  To the Jews he became a Jew, to those under the law he became like one under the law, to the Gentiles without the law, like a person without the law.  He did not embrace sin or compromise the saving gospel of Jesus, but he did willingly set aside his rights and his wants and his comforts to meet people where they were at.

What might this have looked like?  When Paul was around Jewish believers, he would still for the sake of their conscience participate in practices and dietary restrictions.  When Paul was around Greeks, he wasn’t a Jew of Jews, but rather looked for common cultural ground with the Greeks in their discussions.  When Paul was around believers or unbelievers, he knew his audience and looked for ways to share Jesus.  Did that make him a giant schmoozer?  Not at all.  Because his work was never about him, but about Christ.  As one who once struggled under the demands of the law, Paul knew who he was in the freedom that comes through Jesus, yet he refused to make ministry about himself – he writes “I do everything for the sake of the gospel…so that I may save at least some.”  Paul wanted Gains for God.

Dear brothers and sisters, do we?  What if we focused on Gains for God in the body of Christ for the next six weeks or so.  What would that look like?  It would involve prioritizing Jesus’ kingdom in our hearts and lives.  It would include, motivated by the gospel, an emphasis not on my rights and my ways, but in giving up a degrees of Christian freedom, time, and attention to better serve to the glory of God.  It may change the way we view the souls we interact with: those of family, and friends, and coworkers, and strangers.  It may mean curbing the way we speak about someone in front of our kids, watching our language among friends, or even checking in with a coworker.  It may mean setting our wants aside to better serve, to listen, to pray with someone, and to help him/her grow closer to knowing their Savior Jesus by faith.  It means being honest about sin and grace, but also doing so with gentleness and respect.  The challenge is before you, dear believer.  Let’s set aside gains for me, and lets look for ways to embrace and share the gospel that there be Gains for God.  Jesus wills that more are saved – and he will help us.  Amen.