Just Because We Can, Doesn’t Mean We Have to

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And as I was reading again this week in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, it made me think of a few years ago when Charla and I were still living in Seminole. We were driving along I-40 one day and saw a billboard with an amazing looking stake on it. And I don’t go for stake very often.

I’m not made of money. But this just, this looked amazing. And of course, they stage them to look amazing.

But also, there’s something about seeing a 20-foot high picture of steak, right? I mean, it just looks bigger than life size, because it is. And I remember looking at that and saying, I want to go try that place.

Now, the catch was it was in one of the tribal casinos. I may have mentioned this story once before last Sunday night, as a matter of fact. But it was in one of the tribal casinos.

And so Charlie and I start having the conversation, is it wrong? Now, I’m not a gambler. I’ve never gone and gambled at a casino. But is it wrong if I go and have a steak at the casino?

And we had this discussion back and forth. And there was nothing sinful about going to that restaurant and having a steak. But as we continued to talk, our attention came to a man who was a member of our church, a fairly new member of our church.

He was a baby Christian later in life, somebody who’d spent his life running from the Lord and then came to know him later in life. And I had visited with that man enough to know that he had had struggles with gambling. He had had struggles with his wife and gambling.

It had destroyed his marriage. And I remember discussing this with her and saying, you know, we could go have dinner there. But if, and I don’t want to say his name, I’m going to say Bob.

It’s not really Bob, but if Bob were to drive by and see my truck at the casino, what would that do to him? And it actually came up later on in a discipleship training small group we were doing. That conversation came up and I said, I asked him directly, what would that have done?

He said, oh, that would have absolutely devastated me. I don’t think I would have come back to this church if I’d seen your truck at the casino. He said, well, I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t go have steak. now did I have every right to go have a steak I think so but it wasn’t worth it to hurt him and we could look at that and say well he’s being overly sensitive he’s this he’s that the point is it would have affected him and that’s something that I as a believer not just as a pastor but as a believer had to take into consideration now he didn’t come to me and say you better not ever go have a steak at that casino but I just I had to know how my actions were going to affect others and that’s the sort of thing that Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians chapter 9.

I want us to read the first part of this chapter this morning. It sort of deals with what we talked about last week with our freedom and our choices and where we draw lines and he’s dealing still with the concept of the liberty that we have in Christ. And once you’ve turned there, if you’ve turned there with me already, once you turn there, if you’d stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. Does this sound funny to anybody else?

Or is it just me? Okay. I don’t know if I did something to it or what.

But we’re going to read together from God’s Word, 1 Corinthians 9. And here’s what Paul says. He says, Am I not free?

Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?

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. My defense to those who examine me is this.

Do we not have a right to eat and drink? Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working?

Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock?

I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does the law also say these things? For it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.

God is not concerned about oxen, is he? Or is he speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops.

If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple?

And those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar. So the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel. But I have used none of these things, and 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 have any man make my boast an empty one.

For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of. For I am under compulsion, for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward.

But if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me. And we’re going to stop there this morning and pick up there again next week. You can be seated.

I’m going to explain to you what this has to do with going to the casino steakhouse in just a moment. I do think it’s funny, though. I think the Lord has a sense of humor.

I think that’s true. Because it’s not unusual for us to have a guest or two in services, people coming and checking out the church. But if we have a ton of guests, a ton of people here for the first time, I can guarantee you it’s going to be on a Sunday where we’re talking about some weird stuff from 1 Corinthians, Like, for example, the man having the affair with his stepmother.

We had a whole bunch of visitors that day. And then we come to, Brother Mike’s going to be talking to you at the end of the service about the budget meeting coming up. And the passage we’re in in 1 Corinthians is about paying the preacher.

Like, well, that looks like I planned it that way. I did not plan that. And I want to be clear, Paul is not even talking about how he needs to be paid.

He’s talking about an example of rights that he has that he did not exercise, and talking about the reasons why he did not exercise them. And the broader point he’s trying to make, and we’ll get into this example as we go through, the broader point he’s trying to make so we understand, so we don’t read this and at first glance think he’s just complaining about not making enough money. The point that he’s making is that God has given each of us rights, but it doesn’t mean we always have to exercise them.

Now, I want to be clear before anybody mistakes either. I’m not talking about human rights and civil rights, and I’m not talking about letting the world and the government just roll all over you. I’m talking about we as individuals, and particularly him talking to believers.

You know, we have rights. We have freedom in Christ. I have the right to do things. I’m not bound under the Old Testament law.

There’s a lot of things that I am free to do, but it doesn’t mean I have to go and do those things.

for example off the top of my head I I have the freedom to paint myself blue and run up and down gore boulevard if I wanted to I don’t want to I I don’t even understand that impulse but just because I have the right to do that doesn’t mean I have to do that right doesn’t mean it’s something I should do and also I have to think about how it might affect other people how it might affect you okay do I want to go back to that church that man’s nuts probably be on the news you’d be getting questions from your neighbors do you go to the church with the blue guy and yet just because I have the right to do something doesn’t automatically mean that I have to do it and so Paul here in in the first part of chapter 9 is is making this case and he’s using himself as an example to the Corinthians instead of coming at them and saying you have the right to do this but you shouldn’t he’s using himself as an example and talking about the rights that he has as specifically an apostle and more broadly as a minister of the gospel.

And he starts out in verse 1 outlining these rights that he has. And he tells us in verse 1 that he has the same credentials as all the other apostles. He’s seen the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s worked on his behalf.

He’s done all the things that an apostle is supposed to do. He’s been called by Jesus Christ specifically to be an apostle. He’s saying, I have the same credentials as Peter and John and James.

I’m as much an apostle as any of the rest of them. And he tells us in verse two that he’s born the same fruit as the other apostles. If to others I’m not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

He says, even if other people look at me and are skeptical of my claim of being an apostle, He says, you know that I’m an apostle because I came and brought the gospel to you the way an apostle would. I led you to Christ. I started churches in your area. I’ve done the work of an apostle.

And you and your faith, you are the seal on my work. You are the proof of the calling that I have. So he’s laying out here that he’s just as much an apostle as anybody else.

Some people have taken this to say that Paul must be defending himself against charges that he’s not legitimate the way Peter and John and some of the others were. I think he deals with that in some of his other letters, but I think we’re missing the point if we focus in on that. He’s talking about the rights here that he has.

And so he says, as a result, he has the same rights as the others. He talks in verse 3 about his defense to those who examine him. He has the same rights that the other apostles had.

Even though others would look at him and say, oh no, you’re supposed to do things this way. Or you’re supposed to avoid this. He says, everything the apostles do, everything they have the right to do, I have the right to do because I am an apostle.

And he outlines a few of the things. Verse 4, he says, do we not have a right to eat and drink? He’s talking about himself and Barnabas here.

Do we not have a right to eat and drink? He’s not talking about feasting and gluttony and partying. He’s talking about his food being provided to him.

Support that he receives as he’s going and doing his ministry. The other apostles, you know, they would come into town and somebody would feed them and house them while they were doing their ministry. And he’s saying, is it wrong for us to have the same sort of support?

Of course it’s not. Verse 5, he talks about leading a believing wife like Peter and some of the brothers of Jesus who were apostles. He says, do we not have the right to do that?

He had the right to support a family. Verse 6, or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working? Now this idea of not working is not the idea that as an apostle he just sits around on a golden throne all day while they fan him and feed him grapes.

That’s not what ministry work is. But he’s talking about, do I not have the right to focus on ministry full time? Do I not have a right to make this the focus of my life?

Or am I uniquely among the other apostles required to go out and build tents? Which, by the way, he did.

and Paul’s not complaining about any of this he he tells us in this passage he made the choice to do this for a reason but again consider here that he’s focused on the rights that he has so that they will understand when he says but I have not exercised those rights he offers some parallel examples to him in verse 7 he offers us three different things how soldiers are equipped by those they serve and part of why we have so many civilian workers here at places like Fort Sill is because they are providing material support to people who are serving overseas our military does that pretty well maybe not as well as the frontline guys would like you know they’d like to have more things but but our military does that pretty well I’ve been watching documentaries recently or news reports about the Russian military and how they’re forced to go out and scavenge for their own supplies and whatever has been provided to them is often sold by the higher commanders, and that’s part of why the Russians have made such a poor showing in Ukraine, is because they are so ill-equipped.

That doesn’t work. It doesn’t work when you send the soldiers out to fight and say, you’ve got to raise your own support. When they send North Korean soldiers out to steal what food they can find instead of providing them rations.

It works much better, the American system, of saying, If you’re going to go out and serve on our behalf, we’re going to take care of you. And we should. He said soldiers, of course, the Roman legions, they were equipped by the people they served.

He talks about farmers being supported by the land they cultivate. They plant something in expectation that they’re going to receive a crop. I plant a garden each year, and I love my plants, which sounds weird to say.

I love my plants, but I don’t just love them because they’re pretty. I know there are going to be cucumbers and squash and zucchini that you could drive a tank through. I know that these things, I expect these things to come.

And so I work the ground with the expectation of these things. He talks about how shepherds are supported by the flocks they tend. He’ll raise the livestock, he’ll go out and milk them, he’ll live off the milk.

You know, our chickens are just pets, but we kind of expect a few eggs every now and then. And this is the point that he’s making as an apostle. he said this this happens in the world around us all the time somebody puts in work it’s it’s normal for them to expect some support in return not only that not only the real world examples but he offers a scriptural argument as well we go to verses 8 through 10 he says I’m not just speaking these things according to human judgment am I this is not just my opinion he said the law also says this it’s written in the law you shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing so they would send the the ox to tread down the grain and the corn.

And while you’re letting the ox do the work of milling the grain, they would let the ox eat instead of putting a muzzle on him. And the law of Moses talks about that. And Paul here says, is God really talking about oxen?

Or is God using that as an example of providing for his servants? And so he draws a conclusion. We look at verse 11, where he talks about sowing spiritual things and reaping material things as a result.

And the point he’s trying to make is that ministry is work. It deserves to be rewarded as work. Keep in mind, as I’m telling you this, I’m telling you this because it’s in the scriptures, in the place that we’ve come to now.

And I have no complaints over how the church provides for me. So that’s not what this is about at all. Talking about Paul’s rights here.

But ministry work is work and it deserves to be rewarded as work. And Paul says if others have the right, nobody’s complaining about taking care of John’s needs or Peter’s needs. I have every right as well.

He throws out a few other examples of service in ministry. And he even looks at other religious activities. I don’t know here if he’s referring to the Old Testament system in the temple where the priests would eat some of the meat that was offered or if he’s talking about the pagan temples in Corinth.

but he says those who are attending the altars they get to eat from what’s on the altars and so here’s his conclusion in this a person has the right to find support for himself in his work even ministry work if you work as a mechanic you have the right to expect support you you have the right to expect to make a living at that if you’re working as a farmer you have a right to expect to to make a living at that and he says ministry as an apostle is the same thing but notice that here in verse 12, he’s nestled in there this assertion that we could almost miss where he says, but we did not use this right. And that’s where we know Paul’s not just complaining about money. He’s making sure the Corinthians understand that because they’re going to talk about what they have the right to do in Christ, Paul’s making it clear to them, I have some rights too.

And he says, I did not use that right. Paul, he says, he preferred to endure all things. He was willing to go hungry rather than take what he rightfully deserved from the Corinthians.

And he makes this even clearer in verse 15 when we get down there, that he waived these rights that he’s asserted. The first 14 verses he spends talking about what he has the right to expect in regard to his work. And then we get to verse 15 and he says, but I don’t want that.

I don’t have to take that. He says, I’ve used none of these things and I’m not writing these things so that they will be, so it will be done so in my case. He says, I’ve never taken any support from the church at Corinth and I’m not writing you now so that you’ll send me some.

He says, that’s not my point. For it would be better for me to die than have any man make my boast an empty one. Now next week we’ll talk a little bit more about what his boast is and some of these things as they continue past verse 17.

But here he’s telling us in verse 15, I have these rights that I’ve outlined over the first 14 verses, but I haven’t exercised them, and I don’t intend to exercise them now, at least not when it came to Corinth. In fact, he tells us he’d rather die than do this. What would cause him to feel that way?

I mean, if somebody owed you money, what would bring you to the point of saying, well, I’d rather die than take that money you owe me? We don’t hear that very often, do we? That’s not the way humans normally operate.

There have to be some convictions there that are going to lead to that. Paul explained why he didn’t exercise those rights. And we see that it was all for the sake of the gospel.

Now, this doesn’t mean that Paul never took support, that Paul never received any support. We know that he received gifts from the Philippians. We know that he received gifts from others, but he’s saying to Corinth, I would rather die than take money from you, even if I was working among you.

And he tells us it’s important to him not only that he preached the gospel, but how he preached the gospel. It was important to him the way he carried out his ministry. We see over and over in verses 15 through 17, him talking about him being a slave of Jesus Christ, being under obligation to Jesus Christ, of wanting to be a faithful servant to him.

And in light of that, there are a couple of cultural considerations that make it make sense why he would refuse to take payment from the people in Corinth. Corinth was a place that nobody had taken the gospel, apparently, before Paul had. And so he comes in with this new message, this new religion, and there were all sorts of religious hucksters and con artists running around with all sorts of new doctrines for whoever they could trick into listening to them and following them and giving them some money.

And so Paul came into a place that had never been exposed to the gospel, and he was kind of a pioneer there. And realizing that the gospel was so contrary to what they believed and what they understood, Paul did not want there to be another obstacle that was going to stand in the way of them hearing and understanding the gospel. And so if you were to come in, I mean, imagine yourself today, and this is not unique to me.

I wish I’d come up with this example, but I ran across it in a commentary. I just can’t remember which one. But imagine that you found out about one of the last uncontacted tribes on earth, and you felt called by God to go there.

God said, I’m going to send you there, and you’re going to take the gospel to these people. And so you go to the forests or the jungles of wherever, and you go to this tribe, and you learn the language, you live among them, you get to know the culture, and you go and you begin to share the gospel with them. And you start seeing people get saved.

Two, three, four, five people get saved. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And then you have the beginnings of a little church, and one of the first things you begin to teach this culture that has never known the gospel before is, okay, now that I have a little bit of following, y’all need to start giving me stuff.

That leaves a wrong impression of what the gospel is. Now Paul makes it clear elsewhere he’s not a bit opposed to somebody being paid for the work that they do in the ministry. But Paul going into a new place says, I don’t want to give anybody the chance to misunderstand what the gospel is all about.

I don’t want them to confuse it with these oracles and these prophets and these priests that come from these mystery cults. I want them to understand that we’re here out of dedication to Jesus. So that was one reason why he would have refused to receive anything from the Corinthians.

But also there’s the fact that the Corinthians, as we’ve talked about earlier in this book, the Corinthians were intensely focused on things like wealth and prestige and honor. And as part of his preaching of the gospel and as part of his teaching them how to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ, Paul is continually after them to reign in their ambitions on those things. Your pride is killing you.

You need to deal with the that stop pursuing wealth and ambition. Don’t make that your focus. And Paul didn’t want to confuse them at all by giving them reason to think that his role as an apostle was a position of wealth and prestige.

And so he said, you know, I have every right here to be paid and be taken care of, but because of these considerations here in Corinth, rather than have anybody misunderstand the gospel, rather than have anybody confused, I’m going to take what I have a right to and I’m going to set it aside over here. I have every right to do this, but for the sake of somebody else knowing Jesus Christ, I’m going to set it aside. And that’s what he did.

And where he taught them to be humble, where he taught them to be servants, he went out and he worked with his hands. He went and built tents in order for them to understand the very thing that he was talking about. And we could look at this and say, what a great example Paul is.

And he is. But I think even that falls short because Paul was trying to present an example of somebody else. Paul consistently told the Corinthians, follow me as I’m following Christ. And Jesus is the ultimate example of what it means to do this.

When we look at Philippians chapter 2, if you want to turn there with me. Sorry, these pages stick together. Philippians chapter 2, Paul tells them to let this mind be in them.

Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. That’s Philippians 2. 5.

He says, who although he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross and for this reason also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. There’s that picture in there of Jesus, it says being in the form of God, that doesn’t mean he was just like God, he is God and that’s exactly what he was.

And then it says he emptied himself and theologians have argued for centuries about what that means to the point that some have twisted it to say he became less than God or he stopped being God. That doesn’t work. For logical reasons, for biblical reasons, that doesn’t work.

What he emptied himself of, Philippians 2 tells us. His rights. He didn’t think his position in heaven was something that he ought to cling to.

He had every right to remain glorified in heaven. He had every right to be served by the angels in heaven. He had every right to remain on his throne.

He’s God. It’s what he’s entitled to. And yet Jesus took those rights, what he was entitled to, and set those aside.

And instead, came to earth to be with us. And to become one of us. And to deal with all of our stuff.

And to be humiliated and rejected and crucified for his trouble. So that he could pay for our salvation. Now, Paul’s a good example, but Jesus, you can’t get a better example than Jesus.

Of somebody taking the rights they’re entitled to have. and saying, I’m going to put those aside, and I’m not going to use those right now, because somebody else being reconciled to the Father is more important. And that’s the whole thing about Paul’s discussion about payment.

Has nothing to do with, hey, you got up the budget. Has everything to do with, I could insist on that, but I don’t, and here’s why. And where that applies to us, to you and me today, is that our greatest concern in exercising or sacrificing our rights, basically choosing what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do, our greatest concern should be for others to hear the gospel.

In the way that Paul did and certainly in the way that Jesus did, to say, I may have the right to do this, I may have the right to go get that stake, and by the way, if you go get that stake, I’m not judging you. I’m talking about the situation I was in and the man I knew that that would bother. But I have every right to go get that stake, I have every right to do this, I have every right to do that, you may very well have every right to do what you’re talking about.

But you and I both have a consideration about whether what we choose to do, what rights we choose to exercise, is it going to move people closer to Jesus Christ or further away? Now, I’m not trying to take away your liberty in Christ. What I’m saying to you is we have to think about others. We have to think about our witness.

We have to think about the way things appear to other people. Well, they should mind their own business. I agree, but none of us mind our own business.

It’s not the way we’re wired as humans. I should mind my own business a lot more than I do, but, you know, I’m dealing with the Lord about that. People see what we do.

People hear what we say. And whether we think we’re role models or not, it affects them. And so reading a passage like this, I ask myself the question, is what I’m doing moving people closer to Jesus, moving people closer to reconciliation with the Father, or further away?

And if it’s going to move them further away, I may have every right to do it, but I don’t want to do it. And I hope I remember in that moment that I don’t want to do it because the gospel is more important. It’s more important that people come to know Jesus than I get to do what I want to do.

And this morning, if you’ve never trusted Jesus as your Savior, what I’m talking about with us coming to know Jesus is really what I talked about there in Philippians chapter 2. That we sinned against a holy God, and our sin separates us from Him. And there’s nothing that you or I could ever do to earn our way back into God’s favor.

that sin was always going to be there until it was punished, until it was paid for, because God is a holy and righteous judge. God is also loving. And God the Son came, despite what He deserved, He came to be among us, and He came to take responsibility for our sins, for mine and for yours, and to be nailed to the cross to shed His blood and die in our place so that we could be forgiven.

He did that for you. And the way for you to be right with God is to acknowledge that you’ve sinned, to acknowledge that God’s right and I’m wrong, to believe that Jesus died to pay for the sin that separates you from God and rose again to prove it, and then ask God for that forgiveness and you’ll have it.