1 Corinthians 9.19-23
Freed to Be A Slave
I Corinthians 9:19-23
Fred and Elaine Meder lived out a fantasy that plays in the minds of many people. In the late 1960’s, they moved away from their responsibilities as a professor of philosophy and a school teacher to move inside the Arctic Circle to the Brooks Mountain range, where they were 50 miles from their nearest neighbor and 250 miles from the nearest road. They survived the Arctic winters of –50 degrees, living in very primitive conditions. They built a three-room cabin; they ate berries, fruit, and wild game; they made bowls out of the roots of spruce trees; and they killed the game for the hides in order to wear.
They wanted complete independence from anyone or anything that they started cultivating crops. Their philosophy was this: “Life can be lived to the full only at a distance from other people.” For 15 years they stayed there; and left only to write a book.
Is that a Christian concept? There may be a temptation to retreat; to get away from people, but is that in the will of God for your life?
In this passage, we find that the Christian life is not a life of isolation, but availability; not a life of alonement, but a life of involvement.
The gospel is full of paradoxes. To live you must die. To be filled you must be empty. To be exalted you must be humble. To get you give. To be the greatest you must be the servant. Paul tells us another paradox in this passage: To be free you must be a slave.
The Christian is free from all people but a voluntary slave to all people in order to win people for Christ.
I. Christians experience a personal freedom.
A. The reality of the freedom. (9:19)
Beginning in 9:1, Paul asks a question, “Am I not free?” This question anticipates an answer. If you were to visit with Paul and asked him what did it mean to know Jesus Christ? He would say, “It meant to be free.” Free from the claim of the law, free from guilt, free from sin, free from the fear of death.
Free from what? If you notice in your copy of the King James version, the word men is italicized. That means that that particular is not in the original language. The phrase could mean free from all things, or free from all people. It may mean both.
He was free from all things. He was free from guilt from the failure of keeping the law. He was free from the power of sin; therefore, he was free from the penalty of sin.
More than that he was free from people. He was set free from the opinions of people. He was set free from his family who counted him as good as dead because he followed Jesus Christ. He was free from the opinions of his peers. He was criticized by thousands of people and loved by thousands of people, but he could say, “I am free from all of it.”
Paul knew what it meant to be free. Do you? The believer is liberated from all ties; he is free from all ultimate dependence on other people; he is free from all guilt of the past, the power of sin in the present, and the fear of judgment in the future. The Christian is free from the law that no one kept anyway. He is free from every human being in a direct relationship with God. Do you know this freedom?
B. The reversal of the freedom. (9:19)
In other words, Paul said, “I make myself a slave to everyone.” He did not say, “Other people enslave me.” No! He said, “Voluntarily, I make myself a slave.” Paul enslaved his life to the needs of other people.
Martin Luther put it this way, “A Christian is a free lord and subject to nobody, while at the same time, being a ministering servant an submitting to everybody.”
How did Paul enslave himself to other people? In Romans 1:14, he says that He was free but a debtor both to the Greek and the Jew, to the wise and the unwise. In Romans 15, he said, “We who are strong ought to bear the burdens of the weak. In Galatians, He said that the Christian is free, nevertheless, he serves others in love.
C. The reason of the freedom. (9:19)
What is the reason for this reversal? What was his motive? He was not working out his guilt trip. He was free from guilt.
The Christian does not serve others out of a weak self-image or a guilt trip. The believer serves others with a very precise goal – to win more people to Christ than otherwise possible. We do not serve others for service sake. We do it to win those to Christ.
II. Liberated Christians adjust according to the situation.
Christians who are free accommodate themselves; bend themselves so that they might win those to Christ. What does it mean to be free yet being a slave to those in need? We must surrender our rights, adjust our behavior, and bend our lifestyle to the needs of others.
Paul gives three examples of what he is talking about.
A. We may adjust ourselves to tradition. (9:20)
Paul was a Jew, but he freed himself from that. He was free from the Mosaic Law that had him bound. In Romans 7, He said that it was as if a dead man had been chained to his back and now He was liberated from a corpse. He no longer had to live the life of a Jew, and yet, he said, “When I am with Jews, I am willing to pick up that burden again, unnecessary as it is, I tie myself to that corpse again in order that I might connect with the Jews in order that I might bring them to the Lord.”
Paul said in Galatians 5 that circumcision doesn’t mean anything, but in Acts Paul said he was circumcised, an din Acts 13:3, he was willing to circumcise Timothy. In Acts 18:18, Paul shaved his head because of the Jewish vow. He was free from tradition, and yet, so that he could relate to the Jews. In Acts 21:17-26, Paul was reporting to the mother church. He joined four Jews in a temple ceremony by praying for their sacrifice. Although he was free, Paul subjected himself to religious customs in order to win Jews to Christ.
B. We may adjust ourselves to religion. (9:20)
Not only did Paul bend to tradition, he bent to the strict Code of Moses, he observed the details of the law. The greatest part of Paul’s freedom was to be able to get out from under the burden of the law; however, he observed the law so that he could win people to Christ.
He knew he was dead to the law (Romans 7:4); he knew the law was abolished (Ephesians 2:15); he knew that the law was cancelled when Jesus was nailed to the cross (Colossians 2:14).
But he was willing to put on the burden in order that he might win some to Christ.
It was as if someone who had been sick for years in the hospital, and was set free, was willing to go back, becoming sick again, in order to win some to Christ. It was like a prisoner who had been pardoned to go back to the cell. But Paul bent in order to connect with those who were under the law. (9:21)
On the other hand, when Paul was with pagans who had no written law from God, he lived as if there were no written law. He changed his whole name from the Hebrew Saul to the Greek Paul in order to connect with the pagan world.
C. We may adjust ourselves to superstition. (9:22)
Does that mean that he became morally weak? No! That is not what the word means. He was referring to those who were superstitious. There were some superstitious people who did not eat certain foods, or drink certain drinks. And they had a superstitious regard for some days. Some days were more holy than others.
Yet Paul was a free man; he didn’t have to drink certain foods, or eat certain foods, or regard some days as more important than others. And yet, Paul adapted his behavior, he changed his behavior in order to win some to Christ.
Even though he was free to eat, drink or do anything moral on any day, he bent to the needs of this superstitious. He gave up his rights in order to win some to Christ.
I wonder how many of us would cut our hair off to win our neighbor to Christ. Would we bend at all to win someone to Jesus Christ? Baptists are traditional people. We set up our lifestyles and are unwilling to change. How many of us would bend our lifestyles in order to win someone to Christ?
Suppose we needed to change something in this church. Suppose we needed to move Wednesday night Bible Study to Thursday night, knowing that there are more who would come to the study on Thursday. Would we be willing to change? Are we too grounded in our own tradition that we would not change to the tradition of someone else?
Lottie Moon, you know from the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, was a woman who adjusted her life for the sake of winning people to Christ. From a comfort home in Georgia, she made a decision to spend 40 years in China. When she got there, she went to the city of Pintoo, a city who especially hated Westerners and Foreigners. Even though she was despised and rejected she adapted to the Chinese. She dressed like them, she ate like them; she made her home look like Chinese. She bent in order to win them. Because American Baptists could not send her enough money to feed, she literally starved herself after 40 years there.
Where are we bending in our life? (9:22)
Paul was made all things to all men. Are you willing to become all things to one person. Are you willing to bend, to adjust, and to change your routine for one person?
III. Christians shape their lives for the gospel’s sake. (9:23)
A. Paul wrote to the church that he did all this for the sake of the gospel. He not only does some things, but all things for the sake of the gospel. He decides where he goes, with whom he spends his time when he does things, and how he does them – only as this is measured by the impact of the gospel.
B. Paul does this to share in its blessings. If you refuse to share in being a slave to many in order to win some to Christ, if you refuse to bend a little to win some to Christ, then you give evidence that you have not share in the gospel.
Paul Rader had urged a banker in New York many times to receive Christ, but he did not respond. One day the preacher sensed that God wanted him to go immediately and speak to this man again. Obediently he took a train and went with all speed to the town where the man lived. He hurried to the bank and found his friend standing in the doorway. “Rader,” he said, “I’m glad to see you! I wrote a telegram begging you to come, but later changed my mind and didn’t send it.” “That’s all right,” said the evangelist, “your message came through anyhow by way of Heaven.” Under deep conviction of sin, the banker was impressed by Rader’s earnestness and his special effort to reach him with the Gospel, and that same hour he accepted the Lord. In his newfound joy he exclaimed, “Did you ever see the sky so blue or the grass so green!” “Hallelujah, you’re truly converted!” came the response, “for we often sing, ‘Heaven above is softer blue, earth around is sweeter green; something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen.’” Suddenly the banker gave a strange gasp and fell into the evangelist’s arms – DEAD! He had been saved on the very brink of eternity.
Where does your life bend for the sake of the gospel? It must bend if you partake of the personal blessings of the gospel.
