Pastor Ross preaches from 1 Cor. 9:19-23.

Do All Things for the Gospel

1 Cor 9:19 – 23

Connection/Tension

One thing I never considered when I began following Jesus was that it meant that Jesus was calling me to become a flexible person- flexible with others in my church community, and, especially as we will see in this sermon, flexible with the lost. I’ve generally thought of Christianity as a line to hold rather than a call to adapt. And in different ways, it’s both, so it takes a great deal of wisdom to be a Christian.

Now, we all inhabit a culture that encourages us to structure our lives around our preferences rather than others. We live, more than ever, in the age of “me” and it might be one of the hardest moments in recent history to be a person who is adaptable to others.

So, how should we respond when the whole success of the gospel and the mission of the church requires God’s people to be adaptable and flexible like Jesus was to us? If Jesus didn’t adapt to our needs, none of us would be Christians. Paul is going to help us become like Jesus in this way this morning.

And if you are not yet a Christian, we are glad you are here and hope you experience Jesus as you hear about his life and mission and the kind of church community he came to create.

Context

In chapter 8, Paul encouraged the Corinthians to give up their right to eat meat sacrificed to idols (in certain situations) for the sake of other Christians. Then, in chapter 9, Paul gives his own life as an example of sacrificing rights (in his case, earning an income for ministering in Corinth- he does it for free and takes a job instead). Now, in these verses, Paul is going to further explain why Christians should be flexible with their rights and preferences. He’s going to refer to the great event that happened in his life that changed his orientation as a person from self to God and others:

Revelation

19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.

Our passage begins with the word “for.” In this case, you could think of that word as “because.” Paul is giving a reason for what came before (in last week’s sermon). As you heard, Paul did not make use of his right of being paid for preaching the gospel in Corinth- he took a job instead (which is not a small thing when you are trying to preach the Bible and minister). So, here we get Paul’s reason for neglecting payment. He says (in poetic and mysterious language),

“though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all.”

Paul, in his former life, was not free. He was a slave of his passions and of his own ambition. He was a slave of the culture of the Jewish religious elite. He mercilessly hunted down the church and was an opponent of the very Lord he thought he served. 

So, what happened when Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and the scales fell from his eyes? He finally saw the one he was made for, made to serve, made to know, and he was free. He was free of the claims and agendas of every other human being.[1] He was free from his sinful passions. He was free from all other lesser and sinful allegiances. His new great allegiance to the Lord Jesus displaced and freed him from every lesser allegiance that enslaved him. 

Do you want to be free this morning from your idols or from toxic, manipulative relationships, or from the pressure of our culture? The key is not sheer will power and grit- it’s to offer up the Jesus a higher allegiance than anything else and thereby break the power of lesser things over your life. The way to displace lesser desires and lesser allegiances you want to be free from is to replace them with a greater one, which is what set Paul free and what can free us this morning.[2] Paul, in this manner, becomes free from all. 

So, how does Paul respond to having a freedom from all other masters, all other allegiances besides Jesus? How will he live now that nothing and no one else has a claim over him that can take him away from his Lord?

Now, he can make himself a servant (or even “slave”) to all others. That is, since his life is secure, he’s free to give it away. Nothing can break the secure bond between him and his Lord Jesus. You know someone is free when they can give themselves away for others (like Jesus). It’s those who live for survival and with a preoccupation with themselves who are in slavery. They can’t get outside of themselves, they can’t get beyond themselves, because their idols can’t meet their needs. It’s tragic and should stir up our compassion for anyone who lives like that (Jesus responds with “compassion” to the helpless multitudes).  

On the other hand, it's a sign of freedom when someone lives to meet the needs of others because God has already met their own. So, Paul now lives as a “slave” to all. What does that look like for him?

He lives in order “that I might win more of them.” That is, he lives for the sake of the life of God coming into the souls of more and more people.[3] He’s living for souls all of the time. Do we not all want to live with the sense that the Lord is meeting our deepest needs and longings through his provision and so we are free to live for his purposes?

Now, Paul, freed from all his former bondage, is an ambitious man with lofty goals. The wonder of being set free has put a deep and steadfast desire in his heart to see multitudes of others experience the same thing. Yet, his goals are not the ugly ambition of the world- the thirst for things, for sex, for power that leads you to devour others (and makes you a slave of those desires). Rather, he’s ambitious for souls. He will sacrifice these things he can see, to serve spiritual purposes he can’t! He lives for victory- yet it’s not victory over his fellow man, it’s victory over his spiritual enemy by releasing spiritual captives through the gospel!

The world needs spiritually ambitious people. We can see the ugly ambition of the world and settle for unambitious lives as Christians. Yet, timid, unambitious lives do not radically connect other people to God; it’s lives of courage and tenacity for Jesus that affect and change others.

I want to ask us all this morning, are you living yet with an ambition for souls that shows up in your day-to-day life? Our priorities are not what we state, but what we live out day to day. Paul has priorities. He models right priorities. He’s challenging our priorities this morning.

Now, Paul is going to move into an “everyday life” illustration of what living as a free man looks like in the day-today for him. I understand it’s not an example that’s day-to-day for us yet, but we will get there. He says,

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.

Paul was an ethnic Jew- and as the Old Testament people of God, the Jewish people were a crucial cultural group in the early church. What’s so strange here is that Paul said “I became as a Jew…” Yet, Paul is culturally Jewish, so in what sense could he, “become as a Jew”?

His next sentence, he explains what he means, “to those under the law I became as one under the law (although not myself under the law)”

What Paul means here is that he is not under Old Testament law, since that covenant has ended with the coming of Christ (and hence, as we will see in the next verse, Paul is under New Covenant law, cf. Rom 10:4). As a follower of Jesus, he’s free from the cultural restrains in the Old Testament (like the food you are allowed to eat or the sign of circumcision), since the common culture that now binds the people of God together is following the way of Jesus in every culture.

And yet, though he is free from Jewish cultural markers, he is also free to use them in certain situations to gain a hearing for the gospel. He can’t require a kosher diet for Christians (Gal 2:12), nor should he adopt it as his regular diet as if he was under the old covenant, yet he is free to eat kosher in different settings to not cause unnecessary offense- so that he can preach the gospel to more people.

So, what principle is at play here that is relevant to us?

Paul has an ambition to share Jesus with others which leads him to live with cultural flexibility to relate to more people.[1]

There are two components in what I just said:

(1)     There is a passion/ambition for the name and fame of Jesus to advance. We were made to live for fame and glory- we have a deep need for it. It’s deadly when we try to fulfill that need by living for our own name and fame. It’s life giving and thrilling when we live for the name and fame of Jesus (the worthy king we were made to offer our allegiance up to).

(2)     This passion drives Paul to live with sacrifice to see this purpose fulfilled. If you have passion, you will have power to sacrifice and accomplish great things for God. Without passion, there is no sacrifice and no extraordinary life.

Paul models a flexibility toward the cultural practices of not-yet-Christians. That sounds simple (or even easy) at first listen, but it’s not. As humans, we are cultural creatures, which means that we conform to patterns of behavior. We naturally prefer, often deeply, our own culture’s pattern of behavior over others’.

At one level, there is nothing immoral about preferring one’s own culture- everyone does by default. Yet, what’s the broader context of this part of the letter? Voluntarily laying down what rightfully belongs to us for the sake of Jesus and his mission.

According to the world, you do have the “right” to stay in your own cultural lane, mind your own business, stick to people who are like you, and not enter discomfort. And yet, that will be a limitation on your life and effectiveness as a human and a minister of the gospel. Paul is saying you have the “freedom” to break through that limitation and connect with people on their terms and in their spaces. Your preferences and comfort don’t own you anymore. You’re not a slave to those anymore. You belong to Lord Jesus now. So, go ahead, serve the lost as Christ served you. Connect with those far from God as Christ connected with you. Pass through discomfort and suffering rather than avoiding it to accomplish the purposes of God through you.[4]

You could even think of this passage as saying, you have a new culture now. Earlier, I defined “culture” as a pattern of behavior you conform to. When we follow Jesus in everyday life, what we are saying is that we conform to his pattern of behavior now rather than the one we inherited. So, our culture, as Christians, is otherworldly, and enables us to enter any culture of this world with the love and message of the gospel. All of us have a culture of origin that affects us and has shaped us, yet when we follow Jesus, it no longer defines us. Only Jesus and his ways do. 

Alright, you might be thinking, but what does this look like in day-to-day life? Let’s keep moving and we will get into that more,

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.

Now, Paul is referring to another way lives with flexibility for the sake of the gospel. While the Jewish people are one big cultural group in the early church, there is also cultures of the non-Jewish nations of the Roman world.

Just as Paul is free to take on the cultural markers of Jewishness in some situations, he’s also free not to in others to relate to non-Jewish people. Being “outside the law” does not mean there are not moral requirements on Paul, just that the cultural markers of the Old Covenant, which were mandatory for the people of God until Christ came, are no longer mandatory now that he has.

That’s what Paul means that he is not “outside the law of God but under the law of Christ.” Jesus has come and fulfilled the Old Covenant law (Matt 5:17), bringing it to an end for the people of God and then giving us a New Covenant law through his own teaching and Apostles. From Jews and the Apostles, we receive a new and even better law that allows us to live for flexibly for spiritual purposes. This does not mean that the Old Covenant law is not valuable or relevant. The Old Covenant is relevant to us always as Scripture and instruction. Yet, what’s directly morally binding on us now is the teaching of Jesus and his Apostles.

The principle is that as God’s purposes move forward in history, the law gives God’s people greater and greater levels of freedom (cf. Gal 3:24). There are fewer restrictions, fewer ceremonial requirements, all granting God’s people a greater level of adaptability and freedom to reach the nations.

Prior to God’s Spirit coming, there are more restrictions to preserve the holiness of the people (cf. Lev 10:10). Now that the Spirit has arrived, and it’s God’s presence with us that makes us holy (Gal 5:25), God gave us a new and better law that allows for more adaptability for the sake of mission. If God structures his law that way, then we ought to structure our lives that way.

Paul keeps writing,

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.

The “weak” likely means those with weak consciences (8:7)- you can listen to pastor Daniel’s sermon from a few weeks ago to hear more about that.

Can you not hear the fervency in Paul’s words? He doesn’t just occasionally adapt to other people’s preferences to gain a hearing for the gospel- it’s his lifestyle. He’s sidestepping every distraction possible to make his only claim, “Jesus is Lord!” He does “all things” for the sake of the gospel. He’s so ambitious that other people know Jesus that he puts every other passion and priority underneath his chief one. He submits and subdues all his desire to the great desire of his heart- the name and fame of Christ.

So, what can this look like in day-to-day life?

I was talking with a friend on the phone last week who used to be a member at our church and he pointed out we need more “steady/radical” Christians. I think what he meant by that is that we need to live with a steadiness and discipline in life, yet we are ready, even eager, to make room in our schedule for ministry opportunities. Bedtime is important- it’s just not as important as new birth. Political preferences can be important, but not as important as a new friendship that can lead someone else to Christ. We must not let our preferences prevent us from forming new friendships with all kinds of people.

Here is what that could look like: 

1. To adapt to all kinds of personalities, providing welcoming space in your presence, especially to those who are difficult to be around. 

2. To adapt to all kinds of food and non-sinful topic of conversation. I think one great sign you’ve become adaptable to others is when you’ve become curious about every person. Do you want to enter into the world and the life of others? Jesus found people interesting, do you? If the only conversation you’re interested in is what interests you, you’re not adaptable for the gospel. 

3. To be adaptable to the lost with your house and schedule. Use the time and the space God has entrusted to you to meet the needs of others rather than cater to your own schedule. 

4. Be eager to connect with the nations and cultures that live all around us in this diverse city. Show a curiosity to people’s stories and way of life. 

As far as being cross-cultural, like Paul in this text, I’m so proud and happy that so many of you are taking active steps towards obeying this text in the most direct way. You’re planning not on bringing American culture to another land, but the culture of heaven to Earth in other places who have never heard or experienced it (and I think one way this could look in Minneapolis is showing a curiosity and appreciation towards other’s culture when you encounter them in our multi-ethnic city). 

I remember hearing this story of a missionary to China from way back who grew out his hair quire long and tying it into a ponytail (in the old Chinese dynastic style). He was criticized when he came home (likely to England) for becoming so Chinese. But I think that’s wonderful- and exactly what Paul or Jesus would have done.

All of us should be trying to cultivate this heart whether we are here or some other place. What sacrifices like this accomplish making the gospel as intelligible as possible to someone else. When we insist on our own culture and preferences, it gives the impression that Jesus + our cultural preferences are the way (and worth sacrificing everything for). When we adapt to show Jesus to others, it becomes clearer that Jesus alone is the way. It’s a passion for Jesus that moves us towards this kind of sacrifice and fills us with the same ambition as this missionary and of the Lord Jesus to win the nations with the gospel.

Christ/Church

Paul concludes by saying, 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

This is another way of saying that when you give more of God to others, you get more of God. Are you feeling spiritually dry of late or simply want more of God’s presence? I suggest to you that one of the ways forward is to spend more of your life/time adapting to others for the sake of the gospel. Jesus sacrificed all his preferences when he hung on the cross (how could there be a bigger sacrifice?) and received fulness of joy as his reward. This is the way. Let’s walk in it together.

Wouldn’t our community feel like such a world of love to the lost if none of our non-moral preferences took precedence over our desire to love and relate? This is how the church became supernatural at first (Acts 2) and how our church can be supernatural in our own time. It takes an allegiance to a heavenly thing to make all earthly allegiances of secondary importance and enable to love any kind of person. I want to do “all things for the gospel” with you, church. And if you want to follow this beautiful Jesus you are hearing about this morning, I encourage you to reach out to him now in faith and ask him to rescue you.

Reflection Question:

What distraction/allegiance do you have in your life that interferes with relationship with the lost? It could be something that keeps relationship from happening at all or that introduces unnecessary division into conversation that distracts from the gospel. What would it look like if you surrendered that part of your life to God?

[1] Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries on I and II Corinthians, 304.

[2] See Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.

[3] See Henry Scougel, The Life of God in the Souls of Men

[4][4] I once heard Jeff Vernderstelt say something similar.