Free to Surrender
Notes
Transcript
Omnivorian Liberty
Omnivorian Liberty
On our second date, I discovered a terrible secret, a truly disturbing life choice, a chronic disease afflicting my soon-to-be girlfriend soon-to-be wife.
She was a… vegetarian.
I wanted to make sure I wasn’t about to sacrifice my freedom to eat meat. #deal-breakers
Some of you are thinking: that’s ridiculous. Maybe even selfish.
But… ve ge tar ian. I had to check.
I took her out to a nice steakhouse and order a big giant juicy rare steak. Consumed it slowly.
Actually, I knew all was well when she encouraged me to send it back because it wasn’t rare enough. No color.
I had to protect my “liberty.”
Liberty is my right to do what I want to do. Things or areas in life where I get to exercise my free will.
Our country is (partially) founded on this. “Give me Liberty or give me death!”
Or William Wallace’s more famous cry “FREEEEDOOOOOMMMMM!”
Now, there is a HUGE difference between the government taking your liberty/freedom and voluntarily sacrificing it for another.
But Christian Freedom is a very different thing than the “liberty” or “freedom” practiced and preached in our culture.
We are free in Christ. Radically free. Scandalously free. We are free from sin and death, free from guilt and shame…
How are we to use that freedom?
That may sound like a funny question. If there’s a way we “ought” to use our freedom, is it really freedom at all?
Christ has set us free that we may be free indeed. Not that we should dress back up in the chains of slavery. We are not free from sin and death so that we can dive right back into sin and death. That’s just dumb.
But how are we to more fully, most fully, experience the abundant life?
Last week in 1 Corinthians 8
Last week in 1 Corinthians 8
Matters of conscience, weaker brothers and stumbling blocks.
We are not talking about clear/cut sin issues here. Paul has no chill when it comes to sin, especially ongoing unrepentant sin.
We are talking about actions that, on their own are not sinful, but could be sinful in the heart and mind of a believer because to them it is idolatry (or we can add, it is lust, or wrath, or sloth, or any other thing.)
Regarding these areas, Paul writes that he voluntarily, even eagerly sacrifices his “right” to exercise his own Christian freedom in order to keep his brother from “stumbling” (that is, falling into sin).
Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
Christian Freedom
Christian Freedom
Now Paul elevates this to a larger principle. Not just matters of conscience, but any other thing. Any kind of preference or life choice.
Free:
1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?
2 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.
Am I not free? (the answer is “yes”). He is free. Free in Jesus, free from sin, free to live, to life abundant.
There is a defensive sense to this, even as it transitions from his Christian freedom, clearly someone is critizing Paul. “He’s not really an apostle...” Maybe “he wasn’t one of the original 12.” and “He’s not even married...”
Or criticizing one pastor or another for getting paid.
Likely goes back to the “who’s the best pastor” debate.
3 This is my defense to those who would examine me.
4 Do we not have the right to eat and drink?
5 Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?
7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?
There’s some definite sarcasm here.
He’s answering some specific criticisms.
Someone’s picking on Paul. Poor guy. Clearly he is getting criticism for being married, or maybe Barnabus is. They are getting criticism for being paid, mistaken criticism in Paul’s case.
First he argues from other examples in life. Soldiers, farmers, shepherds. Then from Scripture:
8 Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same?
9 For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned?
10 Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop.
11 If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?
This is a difficult (and embarassing) thing for pastors. If you were “really spiritual” you would do all these things for free! Paul first sets the principle: no, the worker deserves their wages. That is true in every other aspect of life, it is no less true for work being “spiritual.”
Then, having said that, because he is totally awesome, he points out that he hasn’t taken a dime from them.
12 If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.
13 Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings?
14 In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.
He has the right… but he isn’t using the right?
But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.
That’s an odd thing to say????
Are we supposed to want grounds for boasting?
I like the phrasing the Message uses here:
15 Still, I want it made clear that I’ve never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I’m not writing now to get something. I’d rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or impugn my motives.
Paul is driven, almost beyond his free will, to preach the gospel. He can’t help it:
16 For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
17 For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship.
18 What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
It’s a funny thing. He gets no Jesus points for preaching the gospel because he can’t help but preach the gospel. So he will sacrifice and do it for free… even though he in every way deserves a wage… so that he builds up more treasures in heaven.
Strategy.
19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.
Now we are getting to the heart of it all.
This helps explain chapter 7: why is Paul single.
It helps explain chapter 8: why doesn’t Paul eat meat sacrificed to idols in front of people struggling with that issue.
It helps explain why he doesn’t take a wage, and more to come.
Paul has made himself a “slave”.
How to use your Christian Freedom:
Make yourself a slave.
Does that seem backwards to anyone else?
It should. No matter how familiar you are with these verses: this is fundamentally backwards. That’s not generally how “freedom” works.
20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.
21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.
22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.
I don’t like that last bit. Let’s rephrase:
I have become some things to a few people, that by convenient means I might (but probably won’t) save some
That’s way better. And, I think, way more accurate to how we actually live. How we actually order our lives.
Do you think Paul is serious about what he said?
22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.
All things? Really?
To all? All people?
By “All means”?
Certainly he doesn’t include sin. Violations of the moral law. Paul isn’t breaking the 10 commandments in order to preach the gospel. There are boundaries here, guiderails.
It wouldn’t be loving, for example, to let his Christian brother keep sleeping with his father’s wife and think that’s fine. In that case, rebuking him and practicing church discipline is the means to save him.
But within the bounds of his Christian freedom, Paul is willing to do anything.
Let’s review what Paul has put on the line in this chapter alone.
Surrendering My Rights
Surrendering My Rights
This isn’t just about stumbling blocks. It’s way bigger than that.
Paul is surrendering his
right to eat the on-sale meat
right to “be strong”
right to get married
right to get paid $$
right to his ethnic and cultural identity and practice as a Jew
And he isn’t reluctant to do so.
He’s listing these things out, not to impress his awesomeness on the Corinthians. “Look how great my sacrifices are.”
No!
Look how great the gospel is.
But it isn’t simply because self-sacrifice is inherently worthy. It is all for the Goal:
For the Gospel:
For the Gospel:
That is, in particular: “that some may be saved.”
And when they are saved, Paul gets to “share with them in its blessings.”
Paul is eager, even desparate. He is like a man addicted. He has a fever… and the only cure… is more gospel! More people calling on the name of Jesus. More sinners getting rescued. More lost being found.
I think he gets twitchy if he hasn’t seen someone get baptized recently. That eagerness. That expectation!!!
Paul says “I’ll do anything to see that happen again!” I’ll give up my preferences, and conveniences, and rights, and privileges, and liberties and freedom… just in the hopes that “some may be saved.”
Am I willing to rearrange my life in order to save some?
Let’s define “some”.
Maybe if it’s like 1000s?
How about 100s?
2? 3 people? How much would I rearrange, reorder my life in order to save 2 or 3 people.
What am I willing to sacrifice?
My Christian freedom?
My worship preferences?
My relationships?
My finances?
My identity?
The answer, in general, is “no.”
I prioritize my relationships… and then I try to work in “gospel focus” in and around my new relational commitments. Husband first. Dad first. Work first. Then priority hobbies. Then I’ll sneak my “gospel duty” in around the edges.
How radically broken are my priorities!!!?
I can say “good for you, Paul.”
But I hear Paul challenging me to “follow him as he follows Christ.” “Be imitators of me” he says. He is challenging the people of Corinth to love that big. To prioritize the gospel that radically. To give all, to run as athletes, discipling the body, the self, the appetites the everything towards winning the prize.
I can feel guilty. I can feel like a terrible Christian.
But I think we need to ask ourselves why we don’t do that.
What if this were us?
22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.
We aren’t “addicted” to leading people to Jesus… because that isn’t something we experience that often. Maybe we have a story from back in high school… or college. People who lead people to Jesus regularly get addicted to it.
I want that in me. I’ll be honest, I don’t feel it yet. And I haven’t yet restructured and reoriented my life to this degree.
And church, let’s be honest, we haven’t yet structured and restructured our church this way. We have begun… but we aren’t there yet.
What is your level of expectation of seeing someone come to saving faith in Jesus this morning?
Low.
How motivated are you to do something about that?
If your answer is “I’ll do anything” Let’s talk.
If your answer is “not much”… I hear you. I understand. I think you and I are missing out on the very best life. On the most abundant, on the most rewarding.
Jesus paints a picture of the party in heaven, the celebration when one sinner repents and is saved. They get it.
May God give us a taste, remind us of the power, the beauty of his gospel to rescue and redeem even the most broken, the most sinful, the most lost.
And then, may we never be satisfied with “status quo” again. May we, church, be willing to put everything on the line.
Just to save “some.”
That’s the very heart of God. That is the love of Christ. That is what He did for me. What He did for you.
That’s the race we are running. Let’s run to the finish!