Giving Up to Gain
1 Corinthians 9:19-27
Now, in I Corinthians chapter 9 we want to look at verses 19 to 27, this morning, as we continue to study this really, really exciting letter. And I want to begin by just sharing with you a little study that I got involved in this week. I was thinking through the whole subject of evangelism because Paul in this passage talks about winning people. In verse 19, at the end, "That I might gain the more." In verse 20, "That I might gain the Jews." Later in verse 20, "That I might gain them that are under the law." In verse 21, "That I might gain them that are without law." In verse 22, "That I might gain the weak."
He continually talks about this. He talks about running to obtain. He talks about a reward. He's got something in mind. And what he has in mind here is winning people to Christ, that's the objective of this whole passage. And so as I was thinking about this aspect of Paul's ministry, the aspect of evangelism which incidentally is only one facet of a multiple ministry that he had of discipling and building churches and training leaders and doing many, many things, but really the heart of everything was this area of winning people to Christ. And as I was thinking it through I thought it might be helpful for all of us if we could get a handle on the reasons why he was so effective. And I drew together several reasons why I believe the Apostle Paul was effective in evangelism. And I think all of these are translatable into anybody's life.
First of all, he had the right message. One of the reasons people are not effective in evangelism is because they really don't know what the message is. They're not sure about the content of the gospel. Or they're afraid to get into a conversation because somebody will get them away from what they know and ask them something they don't know and they'll be hung. And so, Paul was effective because he really knew the message.
In I Corinthians 15 he said, "The gospel was delivered unto him," how that the Lord Jesus died and the third day He rose again, and he went through all of that. He knew the message.
The second thing that made Paul effective in ... in missions or in evangelism was that he had a compelling motive. He said in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive for the things done in the body whether they be worthless or valuable. In other words, he knew he was going to face the record of his life and his service. And later on he said in the same chapter, the love of Christ constrained him. So he had deep motives. The desire out of love for Christ to someday meet Christ and have Christ say - Well done, Paul.
There was a third thing and that is he had a sense of a divine call. In chapter 9, right there where you are, in verse 16 he said, "Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel." Necessity is laid upon me. He knew God had called him. He knew God had commissioned him. He knew that he was simply called upon to obey a divine call, it occurred on the Damascus Road.
In I Timothy chapter 1, he kind of reiterates that, he ... he says - "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who enabled me in that He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained mercy." And that's the great testimony that he gave all through his life that God had just picked him up and put him in the ministry. He had a sense of the divine call to evangelize.
Fourthly, he was successful because he had a great boldness. In Romans 1:16 he said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, the Jew first and also to the Gentile." And this tremendous boldness that enabled him to say, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain," was one other reason for his success.
A fifth, he had the energizing of the Holy Spirit. He knew what it was to walk in the Spirit. He knew what it was to be being kept filled with the Spirit. He knew what it was to obey the Spirit. He knew what it was to avoid quenching or grieving the Spirit. So he saw experientially the power of the Spirit of God in his life. From Acts 13 where the Holy Spirit said, "Separate unto Me, Paul and Barnabas, for the work which I have called them to," right on through his life he always experienced the power of the Holy Spirit.
A sixth reason that he was successful in evangelism was that he had a strategy. He was able to take all of these spiritual realities and funnel them through a method, funnel them through an approach that worked. And you remember if you read Acts 18 and his ministry in Corinth that you have a sample there of how he worked. First he went to the synagogue, won some people to Christ and then he had a coterie of co-evangelists and they attacked the Gentile community. But he had that same strategy everywhere he went. He had a method. He had an approach. He had mapped out a way to go and how to get there.
Seventhly, and I think this is important, we see it in him again and again, he had an unwavering desire to see people saved. He loved people. He cared that people not go to hell. I mean, he really cared. He cared that they come to Christ. He said in Romans 1 - "I am a debtor." In other words, I owe them a debt because I know something they desperately need to know, that makes me responsible to tell them. I see them on a path to doom and I know the answer that can change that and I owe them, at least, the message. What they do with it may be their prerogative. What I do with it is a debt.
And then he had one more, I think, ingredient that made him just amazingly successful and that is the thing we see in I Corinthians 9:19 to 27. He had decided to sacrifice anything and everything in his life if it might mean he could win more people to Christ. He was willing to set aside everything to win people. So here is a man who is successful in evangelism. He has the right message. He has the deep motive of love for Christ. He has a sense of the divine call. He has a great boldness. He has the energizing of the Spirit. He has a strategy. He has a great desire to see people saved. And lastly, and capping it all off, he would do anything to see that happen ... anything. And that brings us to this text.
Verse 19, look at it, we'll elucidate this very point. "For though I am free from all yet have I made myself a slave unto all that I might gain the more." I would absolutely do anything to win people to Christ. Now that's the heart of this text...that I might gain the more. Verse 20: "That I might gain the Jews," again verse 20, "That I might gain them that are under the law." Verse 21, "That I might gain them that are without law." Verse 22, "That I might gain the weak." This is the point ... to win people to Christ is the point. That's what he's saying.
Now he's illustrating a principle to the Corinthians and it is the principle that love limits our liberty. And we've seen it delineated already in chapter 8 and chapter 9 through verse 18. They were wondering whether a Christian should just go do whatever he felt he had the freedom to do and Paul says - No...no, you have the freedom to do some things technically but if you do them you're going to make somebody else stumble and you ought to limit your freedom by your love for that somebody. That's the whole point here. And that's what he's saying in verse 19, - That's what I do, I am free to do whatever I want but I make myself a slave unto everybody in order to win them. I will set aside my liberty to win somebody to Christ. If somebody gets offended with something in my life I'll stop that something whatever it is. I won't do it in order that I might be inoffensive, in order that I might win them to Christ. That's what he's saying.
It all came about because the Corinthians were asking him a question whether they should eat meat offered to idols and he said - Well, it's not wrong in itself but it's wrong if when you do that you offend other Christians, or if you do that and other people think that that's wrong then you have really put yourself in a wrong position. Even doing something that in itself isn't wrong. But that isn't the issue, he says, out of that one little issue of meats offered to idols he draws a principle that's applicable for all time and it's this - the Christian has a gray area between right and wrong where he has the freedom to do things and he can do them, technically, but he has to guide whether he does them or not by the fact of how they will affect somebody else. And that's behind what he says in verse 19. And here he begins to explain his own attitude toward this principle.
He says - Basically there are two crucial items that will make you able to limit your liberty, one is self-denial and the other is self-control. And really, they're very much the same. But he's going to show that in order for us as Christians to be able to say - Hey, I have the liberty to do that, I have the freedom to do that, that is not sin in the Bible, that is not something that is forbidden, I can do that if I want to do that. And at the same time say - But I don't want to do that cause it might offend somebody. In order for us to really be willing to do that we're going to have to exercise self-denial, first of all, and, secondly, self-control.
Let's look first of all at self-denial in verses 19 to 23. And this just simply restates the same principle from different illustrations. Verse 19: "For though I am free from all men." In other words, he is saying - Look, I have learned that a relationship to God is not a relationship related in any sense to ritual. It is not a relationship related in any sense to custom, or to tradition, or to ceremonies. So, I am not bound to keep Jewish ceremonies. And he's talking about the ceremonial thing. I'm not bound to maintain the Sabbath day. I am not bound to eat certain things and not eat certain other things. I am not bound to certain patterns of cooking and certain patterns of new moons and feasts and etc. etc. etc. I am no longer circumscribed to Jewish ceremony and Jewish tradition. On the other hand, I am free from all ceremony of Gentile tradition as well. I am free from all the routines and the rituals of Gentile life. I am free in the fact that I have a relationship to God that is based on the work of Jesus Christ and that is personal and internal and separate from all external. I have the liberty then to reject all ceremony and all externals and all side issues.
And that's right, isn't it? That is absolutely the truth. He has that freedom, and so do you and so do I. He is saying... the word from there is literally in the Greek out of - I am free out of all...all. I am free out of all. I've been taken out of all of those kinds of constraints. Like every Christian I'm free to enjoy that liberty. I can do just about what I want, technically speaking. I have no need to yield to human opinion. I have no need to yield to custom or ceremony. Yet...and here's the key ... yet, I have made myself a slave unto all. Isn't that interesting? That's very paradoxical. He doesn't have to, technically, but he has. He is free, yet a slave. That is a paradox. But it's not an...an uncommon paradox. If you go back to Exodus 21 in the first six verses, I'll just comment on it, it says that if a slave reaches the place where he has the right to be freed and you say - You're free - he also has the right to come back to you and say - But I don't want to be free, I love you, my service to you is not an act of obedience nearly as much as it is an act of love, could I stay? Then Exodus 21 says - "Take your slave over to the doorpost, put his ear against the door and take an awl and pound a hole through his ear." And once the hole is in his ear, he has a sign for all to see that he serves out of love, not because he has to but because he wants to. He is really free, free to choose. That's all Paul is saying. He, as it were, spiritually has a hole in his ear. I don't have to do this, he says, but I want to do it because I love you.
Now the word there - to enslave - the verb, to make yourself a slave, is very strong. It is the same word used in I Corinthians 7:15 in relation to the marriage bond. It is the same word used in Romans 6:18 and 22 to speak of our union with Christ. So, it is a vitally important word. It is a word of the very tightest kind of union. He is saying - I will just put myself up against you and do whatever it requires to reach you, to minister to you, to meet your needs. He's truly a slave. He is denying himself in the truest sense, he follows the pattern of Jesus who said: "Whoever would be chief among you let him be your ... what? ... your servant," Mark 10:44. And that's precisely what Jesus was, for in the next verse it says: "I even came not to be served, literally, but to serve and give My life a ransom for many."
So, Paul says I'm willing to sacrifice everything to be your servant. People often ask me - Well, how far does this go, John? It goes just as far as it needs to go to reach somebody. How many things do you set aside to reach somebody? Anything that stands in the way. Now that's clear, and Paul gives the reason in verse 19.
Here's a purpose clause, "In order that I might gain the more." My objective is to win more people to Christ. He knows that Proverbs 11:30, "He that winneth souls is wise." He said in Romans 11 and verse 14 essentially the same thing in reference to Israel. He said, "I would do anything that by any means I would provoke to jealousy them who are my flesh and might save some of them." I'd do anything to reach Israel, in that case it was preaching to the Gentiles which became a point of jealousy and actually wound up with the Jews saying - Hey, what is this they're getting and we're not? And they were looking into it and getting saved. He says - I would do anything to provoke them.
In 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 8 he says - Remember Jesus Christ ... and then goes on ... for which I suffer trouble even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound. But that's all right, I endure all things for the elect's sake that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus.
In other words, I would do anything if people would become saved. I will be a prisoner. I will go to jail. I will set my life aside. I will die. I will do anything. And short of those things I certainly will sacrifice some rights.
And here the Corinthians were just doing ... they were saying Well, it's my right. And so they were going out and doing what they wanted to do and, of course, the weaker brother and the unbeliever was not able to rectify that thing and to resolve that with the faith they testified to and it became a stumbling block.
So, Paul says - This is the way I live. Now look at verse 20 and here he gets into some practical applications just showing you the areas in which he worked this way. "Unto the Jews I became as a Jew." Now he's talking about the race of Jews, under the Jews racially - I became as a Jew. In other words, I adapted their customs. Why, Paul? Here's the second purpose clause - "In order that I might gain the Jews."
Listen, when I was with the Jews, he says, whatever their ceremonial law dictated I did. I mean, if ... if it was important to them to have a certain meal a certain way - fine, I did it. If it was important for them to celebrate a certain day a certain way - fine, I did that too. If it was important for them to follow a certain pattern - I did that as well. Why? That I might win them.
What are you saying, Paul? Are you saying you win people to Christ by accommodating yourself? No. I'm saying you gain the right to speak the truth by accommodating yourself. If you go in and offend those people, you lose that.
Let me give you an illustration. Look at Acts 15, and this is...this is a very practical illustration. The Jerusalem Council was meeting, first church council here, was meeting to try to determine what they should do with the Gentile converts. In other words, they were still hung up on some Jewish tradition and so Gentiles were getting saved and they were saying - Well, you know, the Gentiles are getting saved and they're receiving the Holy Spirit an4 man, what are we going to do about this? And the Judaizers were saying - But they can't be real Christians they haven't been circumcised. And so the Jerusalem Council discusses the issue and they decide this, verse 19, this is James who is chairman speaking, and he kind of pulls together the discussion: "Wherefore then my judgment is this, that we trouble not them who from among the Gentiles are turned to God."
In other words, that's settled. We're not going to add anything. They've turned to God, we've seen it, that's beautiful, there's nothing to add - don't trouble them. We don't need to say - Oh, I'm sorry, you're not really saved because you didn't become Jewish first. As if Judaism was the only way to salvation. Forget it, let's accept them as they are. But, verse 20, this is good - "Let's write a letter to them and remind them of four things to stay away from."
Now you say - Wait a minute. Is this something necessary for salvation? Well, we'll see - watch. First of all, abstain from pollutions of idols. That means meat offered to idols. That's precisely the Corinthian problem. Stay away from meat offered to idols. That was not only a hindering to Gentile converts but, listen, that was a hindering to Jewish people. The Jews despised pagan idolatry. The Jews despised the idolatry of...of all of the Gentile religions, and they were multiple. And so what he's simply saying here is - Number one, stay away from what offends not only the Gentile new believers, but even more so what offends the Jews because the Jews were offended by false gods ... stay away.
Second, stay away from fornication. You say - Well, that ... that's obvious. That's not a gray-area matter. Yeah, but I think the idea here is that fornication is a broad word. It means sexual sin. And connected with Gentile worship was sexual sin, a lot of it. And so he's saying - Have nothing to do with Gentile offerings and have nothing to do with hanging around Gentile worship, or Gentile activities where these things go on.
Thirdly, stay away from things strangled. The Gentiles would eat certain things that had been strangled, as a way of killing them. And that means that they had never been cut with an open wound. And that was wrong for a Jew because a Jew had to have the blood drained before he could eat anything. And if there wasn't an open wound, the blood wouldn't have been drained and so they would be eating something strangled - would have blood in it and that would be a violation of their traditional law, their ceremony.
Fourth, stay away from blood. The Gentiles in many of their ceremonies drank blood. I mean, just ... you know, drank it. Now why did they lay this on these Gentiles? Why did they say - Now it's all right, we accept you in the family, but would you do these four things? You Christians? Would you people please do these four things? Stay away from meat offered to idols, stay away from fornicating idolatrous activities, stay away from things strangled, and from blood ... why? Verse 21: "For Moses of old has in every city them that preach him." Who are they? Jews ... "Being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day."
You know why they should abstain from those things? Cause they would offend ... whom? ... the Jews. And if they ever started doing that the Jews wouldn't even begin to listen to what they had to say. So, here was a way that ... they don't have to ... there's nothing wrong with eating those kind of things, there's nothing wrong with eating strangled things, things that were a part of something offered to an idol, fornication does have moral implications, but these things were basically things that were very overtly offensive to the Jews... stay away, he says. Don't do anything that's going to eliminate the possibility of winning them.
Look at chapter 16, verse 1, here's another illustration. "They came to Derbe and Lystra," this is in the area of Galatia, "and behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a certain woman who was a Jewess and believed," a Christian Jewish lady, "but his father was a Gentile." Now that's a mixed marriage. Timothy is a child of a mixed marriage and by everybody in the Jewish world he would be considered a Gentile because his father was a Gentile and his mother would be considered a traitor because she had married a Gentile.
"But Timothy was well reported of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him." Now Paul really liked this young guy and he said - I want him with me. I want him to travel with me. So, "He took and circumcised him." Stop right there.
You say - Oh, no. Why did he do that? Did... did he believe you have to be circumcised to be saved? Nope. Why did he circumcise him? Number one, Paul's ministry, in his strategy, was first of all in every town to go to whom? The Jews. He knew that his companion would have to have acceptability. Here is a guy from a mixed marriage and that mixed marriage is going to be very distasteful and he is considered an uncircumcised son of a Gentile. So, Paul says - We need to circumcise him...not for salvation but to have entrance to evangelize the Jew so the Jew will at least accept him as a proselyte, as somebody who has adopted Judaism. Does it violate grace? No ... Timothy wasn't doing it to be saved and that is very clear here. There was a certain disciple, in verse 1, he was already a disciple of Christ. He was already a believer it was only to enable him to have entrance into the Jewish community.
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