1 Cor No.17 Three Worthy Aims

1 Corinthians chapter 9. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. Don't we have the right to food and drink? Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas? Or is it only I and Barnabas who must work for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn't the law say the same thing? For it is written in the law of Moses, do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.

Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he says this for us, doesn't he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.

Don't you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple? And those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar. In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. But I have not used any of these rights, and I'm not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me.

I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of this boast. Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.

If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward. If not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this, that in preaching the gospel, I may offer it free of charge and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.

Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible. To the Jews, I became like a Jew to win the Jews. To those under the law, I became like one under the law, though I myself am not under the law, so as to win those under the law.

To those not having the law, I became like one not having the law, though I am not free from God's law, but I'm under Christ's law, so as to win those not having the law. To the weak, I became weak to win the weak. I have become all things to all men, so that by all possible means I might save some.

I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.

They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly. I do not fight like a man beating the air.

No, I beat my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. I'd be glad if you'd have your Bibles open at 1 Corinthians and chapter 9, the passage read to us earlier. Just for the benefit of friends who are with us on the for the first occasion this Sunday morning, let me explain that it's our practice, generally speaking, to be making our way on a Sunday morning through a book of the Bible, and for some while now we've been going through at a fair rate this letter of Paul's to the Christian church in the Greek city of Corinth.

I never knew very much about darts, d-a-r-t-s, darts. You looked puzzled when I said that word. I never knew very much about darts until by chance I saw a television program late one night after the news in which the world darts championship was being held.

Never even knew that they had championships, let alone a world championship. And here were these somewhat beefy men, not exactly looking like adverts from Oxfam, with three tiny little instruments, darts, which they try to get into the bull's eye of a dart board. And it seems to me as we come to approach this particular chapter of Scripture that it might be helpful to think in terms of targets and darts and objectives.

You see, what we have here, and it's a long statement, I'll not be able to work through every little comment of the apostles, but what we have here is a sort of autobiography, a lifting of the curtain on Paul's own life, and he shows us what stimulates him as an apostle. Apostle is a word which means a sent one, and in a special sense it applies to Paul. In a general sense, we are all sent ones if we acknowledge Jesus Christ as our Savior, and his evangel, his good news, has been placed in our hearts.

We have certain objectives, or at least we should have, certain goals, certain things for which we are aiming, and Paul reveals at least three, probably more, but three which strike me as being of great importance to share with you this morning as we work our way through this ninth chapter. What is it that he's aiming at? What are his objectives? What are the darts, if you like? What is the nature of the throw? Where does he want to pierce and penetrate with his life? Well, let me just lift out these three as they strike me as I have studied through this passage of Scripture. He has as one of objective to renounce his rights as a follower of Jesus Christ.

You find this in the first 15 verses, but particularly the 15th emphasizes the point. It makes the bull, if you like, more clear. I have not used any of these rights, and I am writing this in the hope that you will—I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me.

What Paul is referring to I'll disclose in a moment, but here is his first objective to renounce certain rights that legitimately could have been his even though he was a follower of Jesus Christ. Second objective, it strikes me, is to be discovered later on from the 16th to the 23rd verse and made plain in the 22nd. I have become all things to all men so that by all means I might save some.

I do all this for the sake of the gospel. Another objective, his second, is to witness to the world, to witness to the world, and in the process of achieving these two goals there's a third target that becomes clear from the 24th through to the 27th verse when he tells us in the final verse, I beat my body and make it my slave. His third goal is the buffeting of the body, the renouncing of rights, witnessing to the world, the buffeting of the body.

These are at least three of the dominant objectives of Paul, and it seems to me that as we consider this chapter under these goals, what he has to say will fall into perspective and bring its own peculiar, if not devastating, challenge to those of us who are sensitive enough to believe that what Paul maps out here should also approximate to be a description of our own lives. Let's take that first target, the renouncing of rights. He makes reference to the word rights on two or three occasions.

Look at it in the twelfth verse towards the end, we did not use this right, and then again the verse that I just quoted, I have not used any of these rights. Verse 15, what's he talking about? Well, in the opening two verses he argues, and I won't spend much time on this, that he is a genuine apostle of Jesus Christ. There were those at Corinth who were suggesting that Paul was less than, say, Peter and the rest of the apostles.

You remember the argument that had broken out in Corinth, that certain groups had said that specific leaders of the church were really their heroes, and that these were more important than Paul. Paul was not a true apostle. Indeed, says Paul, I am.

But the argument against Paul becomes a little nasty when some of the people at Corinth say, well, look at the way that he lives. He's so abstemious. He doesn't eat that.

He doesn't drink the other. He lives a very mediocre life. He doesn't know the freedom that there is in the gospel.

Does that not rob him of his claim to be a genuine apostle? Well, you see, Paul has to deal with the reason why. There are certain rights, certain things that are legitimate and honorable to many followers of Jesus, but he will renounce them because he wants to advance the gospel through his life and can do it better if he does not indulge in these very legitimate things. Well, look at him in the third verse, or rather the fourth verse.

He begins a list of certain things which are quite acceptable for most Christians. Don't we, he says, and the implication is that he doesn't himself indulge, but he had the right to. Don't we have the right to food and drink? He's been talking about meat offered to idols, you know, and sometimes the fact that he's resisted such meat, and yet on other occasions he's indulged.

But here he's generally speaking about his own diet, and it's a pretty mediocre one. Indeed, when you go back to the fourth chapter, you remember how he speaks of his lifestyle in the eleventh verse. To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty.

We are in rags. We are brutally treated. We are homeless.

It's not wrong to have water. It's not wrong to have a good meal. It's not wrong to have a nice home.

But says the apostle Paul, for me I have renounced these things which are legitimate in these areas. He goes on to the fifth verse. He tells us about the habit of the apostles, and this is rather interesting and perhaps blows to pieces the argument of the church of Rome that the priesthood must be celibate.

He says that the apostles, his other brothers, they have a believing wife, and she accompanies them on their journeys, and they benefit by the companionship of their partners. But not Paul. He's on his own.

He has the right to a wife, but for him, and in the interests of the gospel, and in his understanding of God's will for his life, he renounces that right, and often as a result, he's lonely and divorced of female companionship. From the seventh verse, he uses certain examples to indicate that it's quite right for a person engaged in certain industry to live as a result of the work that they are engaged in. The soldier, when he goes to battle, well, does not the army, those who are at the back, who are sending supplies, don't they feed him? A soldier legitimately can take food from others.

A man who plants a vineyard, well, he'll enjoy the fruit, the wine, the grapes. That's quite reasonable. The man who is a shepherd, he drinks, or who looks after his herd, he can benefit from the produce of his animals.

I don't say these things, says the apostle Paul, from a human point of view. He quotes back the law, Deuteronomy, which says that when an ox treads out grain, that dumb beast can eat the grain that it's helping to tread out. If God is concerned for the ox to supply its food, doesn't he have a great concern for men involved in the proclamation of his gospel? You see, Paul's point, don't misunderstand him.

He's not saying that everybody must renounce these things. He's not saying that the man who has a wife, the man who has a home, the man who eats good food and is an evangelist or a proclaimer of the gospel in any way is doing wrong. Paul says this is quite legitimate.

The Old Testament gives you the right to live of the gospel if you're a proponent of the gospel. But as for me, the apostle Paul, I have bypassed these rights. Look at the 11th verses.

He makes the argument very clear. If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? It would be right for the Corinthians to send donations for his support, but says Paul, we ourselves have not used this right. If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more? But we did not use this right.

On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. And in the next couple of verses, the 13th and the 14th, he buttresses the argument that it's legitimate that those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel. But he comes up again in the 15th verse with his own attitude.

I have not used any of these rights. I've renounced them so that in no way could I ever be misunderstood and libeled by those who might suggest that in the preaching of the gospel, I am, if I may use a modern colloquialism, feathering my own nest. Now you see the point.

The apostle is spelling out his attitude to his discipleship. He's not impressing this upon others, but he is saying quite clearly and humbly that there are legitimate rights that he has renounced in the interests of the Savior. Can you say, can I say, that there are certain things in which we do not engage, in which we do not indulge, not because they're wrong in themselves, but because in our particular calling, we feel that they may hinder the advance of the gospel and be a stumbling block to others? Have you got this dart in your hand and that target in your mind, and will you throw it this morning and say, yes, Lord, I want to get a bull's eye in this area.

There are certain legitimate things that I can work out with you that I am going to renounce in my life for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'll come back to that if I have time, which is doubtful in a moment. The second dart that I suggest the apostle has is that of witnessing to the world, and here I brought your attention, I have brought your attention already to the 22nd verse, when he gives us the same idea as John Wesley did in the 17th century, that the world is his parish, and he will do everything to advance the cause of the gospel and bring men and women to a knowledge of Jesus Christ as Savior.

In the opening verses of this section from the 15th to the 18th, he tells us about his motive to make the gospel freely available, and then from the 19th verse to the 23rd, his method of evangelism. As for his motive, well, it's all summed up really in the 16th verse when he says, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. You see, and I know that these verses are a little difficult to grasp, particularly those of you who are very fond of the A.V. You might find that difficult to understand in the 17th verse, but the essence of what Paul is here saying is this.

The person who belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ has a right to preach the gospel. The idea of the Christian not preaching the gospel is, to Paul, absolutely absurd. The Christian believer is enslaved in a very wonderful sense to the Lord Jesus.

Now, the slave doesn't boast because he does his master's bidding. He's got no option. The slave in Corinth, the slave in Rome, it doesn't really matter what example you use from the ancient world.

The slave had to do what his master said, and in that sense, though some of us are in great default, we are all obligated in some way or other to the preaching of the gospel. But what Paul glories in is this, not the fact that he's a good steward of the gospel, but that in discharging the trust that's committed to him at verse 17, he is able, verse 18, to make the gospel available to anyone free of charge, and so not to make use of my rights in preaching it. That's his boast.

That's his motivation. It's not that he feels he's doing a service for the Lord Jesus on a voluntary fashion because he's a preacher. He believes every Christian is to be a preacher in some sense.

Paul is like Jeremiah, who you remember in the stocks, is it the 18th chapter of the prophecy that bears his name that tells the story? In the stocks, he says, I'm not going to speak for God anymore. They're laughing at me. I'm a sensitive fellow.

I'm really upset. They're insulting me. Lord, I quit.

I resign. And then you remember how in that tremendous passage in that prophecy, Jeremiah says, there came a burning in my soul. It was like a volcano.

There was an exothermic reaction, heat produced right down in my heart, and out it had to come, the word of God. I had to discharge it. I couldn't stop it.

Now, Paul's like that, but he says, I'm not bound to do that in the sense that it's something that I willingly say to the Lord Jesus I'll engage in. Rather, this is part and parcel of being a Christian. What Paul is able to boast in is that he makes this free of charge.

He will not be accountable to anyone for the support of his life in the ministry. He will work and work himself to death for the glory of Jesus Christ. That's his motive, to proclaim the gospel and to present it freely around the Roman empire.

But his method, well, you see, his method as it's listed for us, described from the 19th verse, and as I say down to the 23rd, though these are not watertight compartments, of course, his method is to reach every class of person with the gospel. Now, in those days, the world was largely, in Paul's thinking at any rate, split up between the Jew and the Gentile. Now, the Jew had got so many problems in hearing the gospel.

He had an inbuilt tradition, not only the law of the Old Testament, but at least 631 other regulations that he had to keep. And if you were going to approach a Jew, even if you were an emancipated Jew, there were certain things that you had to perhaps accept and respect in order to get a hearing. So when Paul is with the Jews, for example, when he's back in Jerusalem, he'll even submit to a Jewish ordinance and have his head shaved, or rather the hair shaved from his head, so that he can preach the gospel to the Jews.

And when he's with the Gentiles, he'll recognize that he's moving in an area with a completely different culture, and in no way will he put the Gentiles off himself as a person by not recognizing where there are cultural things that he can engage in, which in no way cut across the grain of the gospel. You see, he's a flexible man. Do you know one of the things that stops the gospel being proclaimed today is bigotry? The church is riddled with bigotry, and sometimes our prejudices are proclaimed in terms of principles, and thousands of people are put off the gospel because we do not have this elasticity of the Apostle Paul, who can determine when he's with the Jews, in certain respects, he'll live like the Jews.

When he's with the Gentiles, in certain respects, he'll live like the Gentiles. Why? Because Paul wants to be all things to all men, so that by any means he can win some for the gospel of Christ. Why was Hudson Taylor so successful in China? Because he identified himself with the Chinese.

I've met folks out in Kathmandu, in Nepal, and out in some of these big cities in India, Western people, sophisticated people, some who've gone to our best universities, and they look all the way like Nepali people in their dress and Indians in their lifestyle. Why are they like that? Because they believe that if they'll identify with a people and with their culture, if they'll even adopt the same lifestyle and live on the same diet, that when they speak about Jesus, they will speak with persuasion and with effectiveness. This is what Paul is saying, with your bigotry.

When I'm in Gentile communities, I'll try my best to live as the Gentiles. When I'm in Jewish communities, I'll try my best to live like the Jews. No way will I ever break any gospel principle, but I'll not cling to a prejudice, even if it's one that I might prefer myself.

If by sinking it, I shall advance the gospel. This man's intoxicated, you see. He's mesmerized by the thought of ministering to the world for Jesus Christ.

So he tells us, and he cries it out in almost a peon of praise. If you can express your evangelistic activity in this fashion, I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. What does he mean by the blessings? Well, not the material blessings.

Paul is not going to be an evangelist stuck in California. And Paul would, and that's no disrespect to Christians in California, perhaps I shouldn't have said that. But you know the thought that's at the back of my mind, there are charlatans around the world who prostitute the gospel and acquire wealth as a result.

Nor, says the apostle, there are blessings. What are those blessings, Paul? They're the blessings one day of standing in front of Jesus and looking at the Corinthians and remembering that they came to the Lord through my ministry. He writes to the Philippians and says, you're my joy, you're my crown.

He writes to the Thessalonians with the same idea in view. He's a man who's got his eyes fixed on the ultimate, and he will work in time for the benefits of eternity. That, in a nutshell, is what he means by sharing in the blessings of the gospel.

So he's two darts, and there are two bowls in front of him. The first is to renounce his rights, and he gets it right into the center of the board. The second one, to witness to the world.

And once more, he gets it in the bull's eye. And then he's got the third, and you can't really get the first two in the middle without getting the third there. He gets a full house, buffeting the body.

He says, I beat my body and make it my slave. Here we are in the 24th verse. Let's jump to that, seeing it's at the beginning, and I don't lose you in the rapidity of my speech.

There's so much I want to share this morning, and so little time in which to do it. He's got the idea of a race. The Olympics, they, of course, go back to Greek history, but there were some other games that were held in Corinth called the Ithmian Games.

Biannually, they hosted these particular events. And Paul refers to one race. Actually, it's the 200-yard race.

You'll not get that from either the NIV or the AV, but believe me, that's what Paul is referring to from the original technical term that he uses in the Greek language. Now he says, here's this race, 200 yards. Greeks from all over the peninsula have come to run for it.

They want to get past the tape, first of all. And what do they do? Well, they use every nerve, every little bit of energy to get through the tape and to win the prize. What is that prize? Do you know what it was made of? That wreath that was placed on their head.

Well, it's made out of celery. Can you believe that? Running 200 yards for a wreath made out of celery and parsley must have been a most extraordinary sight to have seen somebody wearing one of these things. But in Greek estimation, this was a tremendous privilege.

Now I says, Paul, there's so much more than celery and parsley in view. For the Christian, he's engaged in a race. It's not just that one can win the prize, there are many.

There's one race and one prize for every individual Christian. But are you running, says Paul, are you running? Verse 25, everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. And don't they? You watch them at Wimbledon, just to move into another area of sport.

Watch them at Wembley, these men who play tennis and football, these women who play tennis, nearly said football, but I understand some strange ladies even engage in that rather strange occupation of kicking a ball around the field. They get themselves into a state of fitness so they may run, so that they may win, so that they may score, so they may get the prize. Now, says Paul, in the spiritual realm, that's just how you and I should behave.

I do not run like a man running aimlessly. You imagine going to a marathon and the gun goes, and maybe it's one of these massive marathons like they have in New York and now in London. Thousands of people, they all charge off, and you want to be awkward, you go in the opposite direction.

Absolutely stupid, aimless, but says Paul, there is by implication Christians at Corinth who are doing just this, they're aimless, they're running, and they don't know where they're running, they've got no purpose in their Christian race, no point in their lives. He goes to another sport, I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, says Paul, and he surprises us in the 27th verse by turning the analogy on himself.

He says, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. Do you know what that word, I beat my body, really means in the original? Even the NIV translators blush to translate it literally. I give myself a black eye.

I give myself a black eye. Have you ever given yourself a black eye for Jesus? Says Paul, I had to beat my eyes, so to speak. I gave myself a black eye when I turned from my Jewish bigotry, and all those things that I used to count superb and to be the top of my list of priorities, I dropped them all.

I beat myself until I realized that they were not important at all. I wonder if you've ever beaten yourself, not physically. The monks in the third century looked at this, and they thought that Paul was talking about whips and wearing hair shirts and that sort of thing, and they physically damaged themselves as though that brought some merit, some grace onto their spiritual bank account in heaven.

But Paul's not speaking like this. He's talking about those things which you give up. He's back to renouncing things, you see.

These legitimate things for him, the wife, decent lifestyle, food, clothing, having good company, traveling by a reasonable method of transport. All these things, says Paul, I gave them up. There were times when I had to beat my body.

You don't ought to do this unless you're crazy, with no reason at all. But Paul's got every reason in the world. What is it? Well, I've spelled it out.

It's to witness to the world of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that is the most important thing to do. And so to advance that, says Paul, I get rid of my bigotry. I wonder, my friend, if you've ever done that in your life.

I tell you almost with tears in my eyes, and I repeat a statement I made ten minutes ago, that the advance of the gospel here in this in this town of Worthing has sometimes been impeded by bigotry. People who have written into the gospel certain regulations and traditions that were never basically there, though they happen to prefer them, and they have every right for their preference. Your sin is when you make a preference, a principle.

When your opinions are exchanged for your convictions, and you will superimpose them upon other people. Says Paul, I gave myself black eyes until until I realized what was the great priority, and there is no other thing that is more important than living for Jesus and preaching for Jesus. Have you ever given your bank balance a black eye? Have you ever given your yearning after professional success, if in any way it dilutes your gospel testimony, a black eye? I think there are many of us who ought in the name of Jesus to black our eyes more often, and to get our priorities in order.

Paul had three darts in his hands. He had three targets in view to renounce rights that legitimately might have been his. To witness to the world, to buffet the body, he got them all in the bull's eye.

May God enable you and the preacher of this message to do exactly the same. Amen. Father, deliver us from any hypocrisy of singing what we never really meant.

Always on the Lord's side, Savior always thine. In the light of that chapter that we have studied, help us to be able to sing this honestly and accurately, and help us to make corrective if in any area of our life we are fudgy, if in any area of our service we've got our priorities jumbled up. Oh God, in these days when there's so much to do and so much need, help us as a Christian community to get those priorities right in order and to get our darts in the bull's eye, for Jesus' sake.

Amen.