1 Cor No.9 Pauls way of life

Very important verses and I ask for your concentration as I read them through to you from the NIV. I'm commencing at the eighth verse, 1 Corinthians and chapter 4. Already you have all you want. Already you have become rich.

You have become kings. And that without us. How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you.

For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe. To angels as well as to men.

We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored.

We are dishonored. To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty. We are in rags.

We are brutally treated. We are homeless. We work hard with our own hands.

When we are cursed, we bless. When we are persecuted, we endure it. When we are slandered, we answer kindly.

Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children, even though you have 10,000 guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel.

Therefore, I urge you to imitate me. For this reason, I am sending to you Timothy, my son, whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing. And then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power. What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love, and with a gentle spirit? Amen. Now I would be glad if you would have your Bibles open at 1 Corinthians and chapter 4. We're going to be looking at the passage from the 8th verse to the end of this very important collection of scriptures.

It has been said that Christianity is not so much a religion, it is more a way of life. And in some measure, I would go along with that statement. For if Christianity is just a collection of doctrines, and it doesn't affect the way that we live, then it's really got no practical value at all.

If Christianity is just a load of talk, then why bother to come to church? Why bother to offer worship? Christianity is more than just a body of doctrine, though it embraces that. It's a life, a life to which people who trust Jesus as Savior are called. It's not just the enthusiasm of your singing that makes Christianity real, it's the consistency of your living.

And this is something that needed to be pushed home as far as those Corinthian believers were concerned. And that's why Paul is writing the letter, this first letter of several that he penned and directed to this community of Christians. He wanted to see more of a way of life, as well as clinging to important doctrine.

So let me appeal for your concentration this morning for what we have to study is vitally important. We don't know an awful amount about the biography of Paul. There are details, of course, in the Acts of the Apostles, and if you're pretty discerning, there are bits and pieces that you can pull together from the letters that he writes.

But he tends, when he writes letters, to eclipse himself, to hide himself. He's concerned more about the message, more about the Lord Jesus. But particularly in Corinthians, there are certain things which Paul has to divulge about himself, which are very, very important for those who've got discerning eyes to look at and to react to.

Later on in this epistle, he will tell us something about the lifestyle of an apostle, and he'll make reference in passing in these verses that we're looking at. And when you go to the next major letter that he wrote to the Corinthians, which is wrapped up in the collection of books we call the New Testament, then again in the fourth chapter and in the eleventh chapter, he'll tell us something about his life. The life of Paul was an amazing one.

Next to that of our blessed Lord, it's perhaps the most instructive in Scripture. And though we don't have as much detail as we would like, there's enough for it to inspire us and to challenge us. And so this morning I address you on Paul's way of life, and there are certain aspects of it that he has to touch on from verse 8 to the end of this fourth chapter.

Now in the opening verses from the 8th to the 13th, Paul draws a contrast. He draws a contrast. That would be my primary point to bring to your attention.

A contrast between Corinthians who claimed to believe, and the life that they were living, and his own life. And as he goes through and suggests what is basic to their lifestyle as opposed to his, you'll see how far short some believers were falling of the calling that was theirs in Christ. You see, there are two levels of Christianity, at least, and possibly grades in between.

Paul's already touched on this earlier, you remember, for he referred to the beginning of chapter 3, some who were spiritual and some who were fleshly, some who were like babes on milk, and some who were men and had solid food. Later on, he's going to refer to mature and immature Christians. And amongst the congregation of Corinth, there were those who were terribly immature.

And Paul contrasts their lifestyle with that of his own. And it's to the former, their lifestyle, that he makes reference in the 8th verse. There's a tinge of irony, not to say sarcasm, in that opening verse.

And when Paul's cutting, when he engages in irony, he does so with the intention of a surgeon who will put his scalpel into the body, not to cause harm, though hurt will be the first product, but to bring about healing. Already, says the Apostle in verse 8, speaking to these immature Christian people, you have all you want. That was their claim.

We're already, verse 8, rich. We're already kings, says the Apostle. Is this really so? Jesus reigns as a king.

Paul will have to tell us more about this in the 15th chapter and the 25th verse. And one day, believers will reign with the Lord Jesus Christ. One day, the end will come, the end of this world as we know it.

There will be the inauguration of the new heaven and the new earth. There's a tremendous destiny that Christians have in front of them, but we're not there yet. These Corinthians thought that they were, though.

And they needed the corrective that Paul later gives to Timothy. When he speaks of Jesus, he says, if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. And the trouble with the Corinthian Christians was that they wanted to reign before they suffered.

They wanted the crown, but they didn't want the cross. They wanted all the benefits of Christianity, but none of the buffetings. And you can't have Christianity, my friend, on that basis.

So here is a large section, at least, of this congregation at Corinth, and says, Paul, you've become rich. Spiritual satisfaction. That can be a very dangerous condition to be in, if it's really a cosmetic term that disguises a great deal of poverty.

You remember the Laodicean Church, Revelation chapter 3? You think you're rich. You think you've got it all. You think that you're gifted.

You think that spiritually you've got more knowledge than anyone else, but you don't realize that you're poor. You don't realize that spiritually you're bankrupt. Now this is what Paul is saying of these Corinthians.

Gifted spiritually, I, Paul, will admit to that. He's not questioning the genuineness of their experience of the gifts of the Spirit, but later on he's going to make a devastating comment. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, have not love, it profits me nothing.

There needs to be not only the believing, but the living. And if there's not the latter, then the former adds up to zero. I, says Paul, I wish it were true, verse 8, that you had become kings, and that we were reigning together, because that would mean that Jesus had returned, and that the eternal age had commenced.

But that's not the point. You've become kings without us. You've arrogated to yourself a spiritual position, which really you falsely occupy.

And so he goes on, and he makes that contrast from the ninth verse, having told us what the Corinthians are like, or some of them. And he goes on to describe his own experience. It seems to me, says the Apostle in verse 9, that God has put us on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena.

It cost Paul a lot to be a Christian. And Paul was very familiar with the Greek and the Roman world, of course, so. And what he has in mind here is the sort of thing that would have happened at the Colosseum in Rome, when towards the end of the festivities, maybe there'd been the games, maybe they had been running around in their chariots, maybe they had been watching the wild animals devour some of the slaves.

And then right at the end, the finale of the program, they bring in on the gladiators. These were men who were going to have to fight one another to the death. They had no option.

They were pitiful creatures. And the eyes of the crowds, in their thousands, were watching these men as they fought to the death. And says, Paul, it seems to me that that is more of an accurate description of the life of a Christian than the type of life that you're occupying.

We've been made, he says, continuing in the ninth verse, we have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. That word spectacle comes from the Greek word, which gives us our English word, theatre. We are a theatron, a spectacle.

Angels, men, all intelligent beings look down upon us. And what do they see as we live for Jesus Christ on this earth? They see that we're treated as the offscouring of humanity, as the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. The end of verse 13.

You see, this is the terrible contrast. Here were some of these Corinthian Christians, and they were having such a cushy time and believing that that was the norm for Christian people. No, says the apostle, we are as fools for Christ.

But you, on the other hand, are wise. We are weak, but you're strong. You're honored, and we're dishonored.

See the contrast all the time. These people did not recognize that the wisdom of the cross was foolishness to ordinary people, and to become a Christian meant to pay a great price in being considered an idiot. Paul knew what it was to be considered such.

Paul, you're a fool, says one of the Roman officials. Do you think to convince me of the resurrection? Do you think to bring me to the foot of the cross? Do you believe that your gospel of the butcher's shop will attract me, a Roman soldier, a mature person? Paul realizes that to live for Jesus has a tremendous cost factor. We're weak.

I, Paul, was weak. Someone has compared the missionary travels of the Apostle Paul like the trail of a bleeding rabbit in the snow, because wherever he went, there was bloodstains. Wherever he went, he suffered for the Christ.

To this very hour, says the Apostle Paul, verse 11, we go hungry and thirsty. The AV follows on that we're naked. The NIV puts it, we're in rags.

We're brutally treated. We're homeless. We are persona non grata.

We are people without a country, men without a passport. And what's more, says the Apostle, verse 12, we work hard with our own hands. You say, what's the indignity of that? Well, it was an absurdity to the Greeks.

Hard work? Why, they didn't like hard work in Greece, and perhaps they were more modern than some of us recognize. But the Apostle Paul was prepared to turn his hands to hard work so that he might provide an income and be able to support himself as he proclaimed the gospel of Christ around the globe. I goes on, Paul, in the 12th verse and following.

When we are cursed, we bless. When we're persecuted, we endure. When we're slandered, we answer kindly.

Do you remember it was Jesus who said, blessed are you when you're persecuted for my name's sake? It was our blessed Lord in the Sermon on the Mount who suggested circumstances in which his followers would be treated in a very hostile fashion. And Paul's mind is saturated in the Sermon on the Mount. He recognizes the teaching of Jesus when he said, if a man would follow me, let him deny himself, let him take up his cross.

And on that basis, Jesus dismissed certain would-be followers. The Christian life wasn't a cushy option. The believer is not someone who needs a religious prop to take him through life because he can't stand on his own.

He recognizes his dependence upon the Lord, but Christianity isn't a soft option. It's harder to be a Christian than to be a non-Christian. It's harder to live for Jesus and have contempt poured upon you than to reject the issues of the gospel and to be an unbeliever or an agnostic, which is really the same, the same thing.

It says the Apostle, towards the end of that section, the last part of the 13th verse, up to this moment, we've become the scum of the earth. The AV puts it, the filth of the world and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. You take a pan that's dirty.

You get one of those green things. I can never remember what you call them. You housewives know when you use it on the pan and you get rid of the, of the dirt, the scum.

It says, Paul, that's what we like. In the eyes of those with whom we have to deal, we're just like that scum. And he wasn't exaggerating.

It cost Paul so much to be a disciple of Jesus. But this is precisely what he discovered was illustrated in the life of the Lord Jesus. For the Savior recognized that before the joy of having achieved his Father's will was experienced, he would have to undergo the contempt of the angry crowd and to be made a laughingstock and hoisted on a cross and to be despised by the priests and the Roman officials.

And when Paul writes again biographically or autobiographically in Galatians, he says this, listen, I live, but not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul is endeavoring as best he can with the aid of the Spirit to reproduce the very characteristics of Christ.

And thus he's rejected and he expects to be rejected by a hostile world. And he is alarmed when he draws a contrast between his life and the lives of some of the Christian community at Corinth. And that's why there's the irony.

That's why there's the tinge of sarcasm in the eighth verse. Now you're full, now you're rich, you've reigned as kings. I ask you, my friend, what's your Christianity like? Is it consistent like the Apostle Paul's was? Or are you to some extent like the Corinthians, strong in experience, but not so strong on living? Concerned about certain people and certain issues, but not concerned about the whole program that is ours because we belong to Jesus of going into the world and proclaiming the gospel.

The trouble with the Corinthians was that they were partisan. They were split into factions. And what is more, they weren't prepared to pay the full price for their faith.

So Paul sends them this letter in which he draws a contrast between himself and their selves. Move on to the 18th verse and down to the, or rather to the 14th verse and down to the 17th. Paul having drawn a contrast, now issues a reminder.

You find that word in the 17th verse when he refers to Timothy being sent to the Corinthians and he says, my son whom I love, he will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus. Paul fully intends to visit the church at Corinth, but before he comes by the way of this letter and through the ministry of Timothy, he will remind them of a couple of things. First of all, he will remind them of the means whereby they were saved.

Look at the 15th verse. Even though you have 10,000 guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel.

What's he saying there? You came to Jesus Christ, you acknowledged him as Savior as a result of my ministry. Why does he have to remind them of that? Well, because unfortunately familiarity can breed contempt. And sometimes those who have gone through a conversion experience can believe that they have somehow or other become superior in their knowledge of God and in their experience of the living Lord than the ones who brought them to the foot of Calvary's cross.

And that was the case at Corinth. So Paul says, let's go through it. Let's remember who it was who brought you to the Savior in the first place.

You might have 10,000 guardians, 10,000 tutors, but you've only got one father. It was God who used my ministry to bring you to the gospel. You know, the Greeks sometimes had in rich families folk who were referred to as tutors.

That's the word described here or translated in the NIV as guardians. And the Apostle is saying the tutor has quite a relationship with his pupil. He takes him to school, he helps him with his lessons, he disciplines him, and the pupil will have a respect for the tutor.

But there will never be the intimacy of relationship between the tutor and a pupil as there is between a father and a son. And says Paul, that's the relationship that exists between you and me. I became your father through the gospel.

Our Catholic friends would take a verse like that and say that that gives them reason to address their priesthood as fathers. But actually that's not the case. The scripture says we're to call no man father, not in the religious sense.

So don't send me a letter to Father Anthony, I won't answer it. Paul says I became your father in this sense that I preached the gospel to you. The seed of the gospel fell through my lips and you were born again through the gospel of Christ.

I ask you, do you know that yourself? Are you a son of God because the gospel has been preached to you? For this reason, says the apostle Paul, because I'm your father in the faith, I'm asking you to recognize that when I write to you in a disciplined fashion, I write because I love you. And I'm asking you also, says the apostle, in the 18th verse, in the 16th verse, to imitate me. Therefore, I urge you to imitate me.

He wants to see in their lives something of the characteristics that have marked his own life. You say the apostle Paul is becoming very partisan himself. He's asking them to become followers of him.

Well, that is only true in a very fine and in a very biblical sense. He wants them to become followers of him as he has in turn been a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Timothy, my special son, my son whom I love, he who is faithful in the Lord, he will remind you of my way of life.

And listen to what Paul can now say. It's a colossal statement, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. In other words, there's no distinction between Paul's living and Paul's doing and Paul's preaching.

What he says, he is. What he is, he says. And in that respect, you can follow the apostle Paul with safety.

So what has our writer done? Well, he's first of all drawn a contrast between the recipients of this letter and himself. Then he's issued a reminder. Remember who brought you to the Lord? Remember that you're to imitate me in as much as I've illustrated the Lord Jesus to you.

Dare you, just before I come to the last passage of my chapter, would you dare to say that to someone yourself? Be an imitator of me. Let's imagine you led someone to Christ. Even forget that for a moment.

Let's imagine that you're just a Christian and you're speaking to the rest of the congregation. You're here in the pulpit and you're saying to us as a congregation, be an imitator of me. Would you dare? How do you live your life? How partisan are you? Are you comprehensive in your relationships as was the apostle Paul? Do you handle your money well? Do you handle your time well? You see, Paul can look at his life and by the grace of God in these areas, there are no inconsistencies at all.

So he can say, imitate me. Dare you say that? That's the challenge of this particular passage of scripture. Lack of consistency.

It bedeviled the testimony at Corinth. And lack of consistency bedeviled the testimony of many Christian groups in the 20th century. So Paul's reminder is a good one.

Imitate me as I've imitated the Lord Jesus. But finally, just to move to the last few verses of scripture, Paul has drawn a contrast. He's says that he's going to come again and minister to the Corinthians.

Why does he have to repeat that promise? Well, you see, there are certain upstarts in the church who have suggested that Paul is frightened of the Corinthians. You see, they're better than he is. Paul himself is a diminutive figure.

Later on, there'll be a description of his physical characteristics. He's a weak man, or so it would seem in stature and in health. And there are those who are saying, oh, he writes in a powerful fashion, but really is a very weak person.

He'll never come back to Corinth. He'll never come and assert his authority. Won't I, says Paul? I promise you in the will of God, I will return.

And some of you who are puffed up, some of you who are arrogant, some of you who claim to have so many spiritual gifts. I will come and I'll check you out. And I will find out, verse 18, not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have.

And he goes on to make that very important remark. The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power. The rule of God in the lives of men cannot be established by mere eloquence.

His opponents at Corinth may talk a lot, but what do they do? Have they advanced the cause of the gospel? Are they right in all their relationships? Or are they partisan? Are they just in one corner relating to one group of people? This is what Paul is going to sort out. This is what he's going to discover and put right when he gets to Corinth. He tells us a great deal, you see, about the kingdom of God later on in this chapter.

The kingdom of God is not just coming together to worship the Lord. That's part of it. The kingdom of God is living out what you believe.

The kingdom of God is loving everyone within the kingdom. The kingdom of God is knowing the agape of Christ, which is a practical love, and directing that agape to everybody. And Paul is going to come and he's going to test them.

And so he puts up the question right at the end. What do you prefer? When I come, shall I come to you as an authoritarian person, or shall I come to you in love and with a gentle spirit? You choose. Put your house in order, and as the result of what I find, I shall be able to determine what way I come to you.

Whether to correct and to discipline, or whether to share with you more and more of the things of God. I've got a minute, as we haven't got communion following this service. It follows, of course, the evening service.

Let me just apply that for a moment, may I? Paul has done three things. He's drawn a contrast. He's issued a reminder.

He repeats a promise, and in that promise, he makes reference to discipline. I wonder how these Corinthians reacted to this letter. I wonder how they reacted to the discipline of Paul.

I wonder how you react to discipline in your Christian life. You see, many of us who are used to preaching from the evangelical pulpit become very insular, very thick-skinned. It never applies to me.

It's always the next person sitting alongside. If someone were to put their arm around your shoulder this morning and say, brother, sister, I believe that you're wrong in this area of your life. Would you accept it? Paul is offering discipline.

It takes a great pastor to discipline a people. It takes a courageous man to point out the faults of another. I thank God for the ministry of Leslie Land and Oliver Sainsbury, the latter being in heaven.

Brother Land's still with us today for two reasons, one reason in particular. They had the courage from time to time when they were with us here at the tab to come along and to talk to me and to point out certain things that they felt were wrong in my ministry. It was a risky thing for them to do.

They didn't know how I would react, but I thank God to this day for their love and for their correction. We impoverish ourselves as Christians if we will not respond to the ministry of discipline. A good father is not an indulgent father.

He doesn't always pat his kid on the head and say, you're right, son, you can have just what you like. Occasionally, and perhaps more than occasionally, if you knew my parents, it was certainly more than occasionally, you get a good old rollicking. You get a telling off.

You might have hands laid on a less vulnerable area of your anatomy just to impress the point on you, but thank God for the discipline. I ask you again, if I, or one of the elders, or one of the elders to me, or me to one of the elders, was to lay a hand on you this morning and say, brother, sister, in this area of your life, I want to lovingly tell you, you're wrong. You're wrong, perhaps, in your attitude to corporate prayer.

You're wrong, perhaps, in your attitude to finance. You're wrong, perhaps, in your attitude to just having friendship and fellowship with certain people and not with other people. Would you take it? Could you take it? Could you react to discipline? You see, the Apostle Paul, when he writes these strong things to the church at Corinth, he writes in a father-son relationship.

He called these readers his dear children. He says in verse 14, I'm not writing to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children, I write like this because I love you. And so, my final comment has been this challenge.

Can you take discipline from God's Word and from God's servants? Because if you can't, and if I can't, then a very vital ministry that the New Testament promises Christian people just go straight over us. And as a result, we're spiritually the poorer. Perhaps the Corinthians accepted what Paul had to say.

I trust in God's grace one day I'll find out and discover it was in the affirmative. May it be the case that we, today, as we read God's Word, as we see these contrasts which Paul draws, as we study these reminders which he issues, as we look into his promise and the discipline that he reckons will come the way of the Corinthian people, may it be that we will apply this to our own hearts and ensure that we're right in our relationships with one another and with God. Paul's way of life was a disciplined way, and it's to that way that God calls you and me, the disciplined, humble servant of God, who'll take correction and live his life to the praise of Jesus Christ.

Amen. It is, of course, a supplement that's sent. And Father, we bless you that that is the case for so many of us here.

We've trusted Jesus Christ as Savior, and it's well with our souls. But Father, it was well with the souls of the Corinthian Christians too. And yet there were other things that you required of them in response to what you had done, and you found that they were faulty.

They had a wrong concept of the kingdom and how they should act. Oh God, correct us if in any fashion we have sunk into the Corinthian tendency and help us, Father God, to be balanced before you, exposing our hearts and our convictions to the rod of your Word, and where reproof and correction is necessary, help us to be able to receive it and to thank you for it. So send us on our way now, rejoicing, basking in the blessing of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and until that great and glorious day when our Savior shall return.

Amen.