Sermon Questions

1. Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an _________ in the way of the _______ of Christ. 
2. What two things helped to verify Paul's apostleship?
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5. What were two things that the apostles had the right to do?
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8. Name three of the arguments does Paul make to justify preachers receiving support? (v. 7-14)
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12. TRUE or FALSE: Paul insisted on and received a salary from the Corinthians in exchange for being an apostle to them.
13. What does Paul set aside and lay down in these verses?
14. TRUE or FALSE: Paul asked,  “would you rather endure anything rather than being a stumbling block?”.
15. What example did Pastor Winans use in his message that we regularly assert our rights but we need to use with great caution? 

Discussion Questions

1. Paul asks 4 questions of the Church in Corinth in verse 1.
2. What is on the heart of Paul when asking these questions?
3. What is concerning Paul in these verses?   
4. Why did the apostle Paul refrain from insisting on his rights?
5. In our country we are well aware of our rights as Americans. Can our rights as Americans ever be an obstacle to our witness as believers?
6. When might we want to NOT assert our rights, so we do not become an obstacle to the gospel?
7. What examples from the Bible illustrate this principle of setting aside your rights for the sake of the gospel? 
8. How does these verses (1 Cor 9:1-15) shape your understanding of Christian leadership and service?
9. As a leader in your home, at work, or in the church, what sacrifices might you be called to make for the sake of furthering the Gospel?
10. As a servant, how can you be more mindful of others in the way you exercise your Christian freedom?
11. From these verses we get a strong sense of the passion of Paul for spreading the gospel. Do you see this passion of Paul as a gift of God or an attribute that can be cultivated and grown? 

Sermon Outline

We saw last week that to live up and out means to have the right priorities. We saw those priorities as being in the gospel, in salvation, and in God's Kingdom. We are returning to the beginning of Chapter 9, where the apostle Paul is giving an example in his own life of the principle that he gives at the very end of Chapter 8.

1Corinthians 8:13 - ¹³Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

To give an example of what he means Paul points towards himself as a witness to this principle that he bears out, in a particular way, in his role as an apostle. Pastor Chris looks at Paul’s example as it applies to not putting an obstacle in anyone's life. He is going to talk about this in terms of rights versus responsibilities as Paul says, if I'm going to live up towards the Lord loving him, and love out towards my neighbor, my life is not going to be first and foremost about asserting my rights but recognizing my responsibilities to God and to my neighbor. The first thing Paul does is establish his standing with the Corinthians. He establishes his standing in terms of who he is as an apostle but also who he is in relationship with the Corinthians. He also establishes his standing in his role and in his relationship and goes to great pains to outline the right that he has and how he exerts that right and lays out the case for his rights.

Standing

The standing that he brings to bear in the life of the Corinthians is both in terms of his role as an apostle and his relationship with the Corinthians.

1Corinthians 9:1-2 - ¹Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? ²If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

He received a call from Jesus himself to be an apostle. He is letting the Corinthian church know of his role and the authority that comes with it. He also establishes his relational standing with the Corinthians. Not only is he saying I am an apostle, therefore listen to what I have to say, he is appealing to their relationship. He talks about his relationship with the Corinthians in terms of standing relationally earlier as well in Chapter 4, when he tells them something they do not want to hear. When you tell someone, they do not want to hear it is helpful to have a relational standing with them.

1Corinthians 4:14-15 – ¹⁴I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

I am telling you this because I love you, you are my beloved children. He establishes a standing with them that he loves them, that they are beloved children to him, that he is a spiritual father to them, and if he is not an apostle to someone else, he is an apostle to them and they are the seal of his workmanship in his role as an apostle.

• Why is it important to consider how Paul begins the argument? It is important as we consider what it means to be witnesses to the gospel in our own lives of the people around us, to ask the question what kind of standing you have in your life with them. When we consider evangelism, it is something you do when you are waiting in line, and you are bored or when you are sitting next to someone on a plane, I should share my faith. But to ask the question, what standing do I have with them? None, but God can do what he wants. We should be open to share the gospel, which is a good thing. Are we developing relationships with our friends, coworkers, families, and neighbors so that we are not talking to strangers, but we are talking to people with which we have standing?
• When we begin to bear witness to the truth of the gospel, the Bible says that the gospel is an offense. That the gospel is not necessarily what somebody wants to hear. The good news is that God has died for their sins and God is inviting the relationship but to ask the question, what standing do you have with other fellow believers? Sometimes someone is caught in a sin, and you need to sit down with them and say, can I tell you something you do not want to hear? But it is not so different, not only with how you would like to share it, but with someone telling you something that you do not want to hear. What a difference it makes when someone you love says I have something to tell you, but you are not going to want to hear it.
• The apostle Paul achieves this in the Book of Philemon. Philemon is a letter that is accompanying the letter to the Colossians. He is appealing to Philemon to receive back a runaway slave whose name is Onesimus. Culturally it was bad for a slave to run away. Paul says I want you to receive Onesimus back not as a slave, but I want you to receive him as a brother. Notice how Paul says it.

Philemon 8-9 – ⁸Though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, ⁹yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you.

He says I am bold enough in Christ to command you but would rather appeal to you because of the relational standing together. He would rather appeal for love's sake. He goes on to say...

Philemon 18-19 – ¹⁸If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. ¹⁹I will repay it—to say nothing of your owing me even your own self.

Paul is telling Philemon we have a standing together. I am telling you something that you do not want to hear, but you know that I love you, so I am appealing. As we consider that, ask yourself the question of the people in your life. Are you investing in relationship with other believers with those who do not yet know or follow Jesus? We want to allow the Holy Spirit to open up those doors. Sometimes people are going to say things to us that we do not want to hear. Sometimes God's going to call us to say things to others they do not want to hear and part of that is the standing of love that we have in people's lives.

Rights

Paul says I have rights, and he is clear about what his right is as an apostle. He says I have one right, although he has many, but he is asserting the right to get paid. Everything that he is saying is saying I have the right to be paid, and he says it many different ways.

• He begins by saying I am an apostle (Vs. 3-5), I have a right to get paid because of my role as an apostle.

1Corinthians 9:4-6 - ⁴Do we not have the right to eat and drink? ⁵Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? ⁶Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?

It is only Barnabas and I who have to work to support ourselves, which is what it's saying.

• Therefore, I have a right to be sustained. But when other people work, don't they also get paid (Vs. 7)?

1Corinthians 9:7 – ⁷Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?

Why wouldn't I get paid for the labor that I do?

• God laws teach us that I should get paid (Vs. 8-10). In Deuteronomy it says you do not muzzle the ox when it treads out the grain.

1Corinthians 9:8-10 – ⁸Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? ⁹For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned?... ¹⁰It was written for our sake.

In other words, when the ox is laboring, he is being sustained by his labor. So, is it just for oxen? No, he is talking about us as well that we would be sustained in our labor.

• There's historical precedent for this (Vs. 11-13), because when the priests work in the temple, didn't they get sustained by their work?

1Corinthians 9:13 - ¹³Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings?

So just as they were sustained by their work, I should be sustained by my work.

• Jesus also commands it (Vs. 14).

1Corinthians 9:14 – ¹⁴In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

Over and over again, he says here is my right to get paid. To be sustained by my labor, I should not have to work outside of the labor of preaching the gospel, but he says in verse 12, I do not make use of it.

1Corinthians 9:12 – ¹²Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

The interesting question is why get paid? We can read between the lines in various places.

• In 2Corinthians he talks about what he calls the Super Apostles, and they demand to get paid. It could be that Paul's saying I am not one of them and he is trying to distinguish himself from these false teachers. It could also be the system of patronage that exemplified the early church, or that time in the Greco Roman period, which is what was going on or at least those divisions in chapters one through four. In 1Corinthians it says those people say I am of Peter, I am of Cephus, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Paul. These are divisions in the church, as people are associating themselves with human leaders to gain status. It could be that Paul is saying you are not mature enough for me to take money from you.

If Paul were to accept payment within the Corinthian context, “No doubt the rich patron would except some quid pro quo in terms of status, influence, or leadership role within the church.” – Anthony Thiselton The First Epistle to the Corinthians

• Paul says I have a right to get paid, but I am not going to. I refrain from my right because I would rather endure anything than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel.

1Corinthians 9:12 – ¹²Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

He definitely felt that if he were to receive money that acceptance of money would be an obstacle to the gospel. He is pointing to his own life as an example to the Corinthian church, and he is saying be like me. You claim to have a right also, to those that are the knowers in Corinth, and what is their right? I have a right to eat meat that has been offered to idols because I have knowledge that those idols are nothing and I have knowledge that there is only one God. Therefore, I have the right to eat that wherever I want. Paul says I have a right to get paid, but I lay it down because of what he said in the beginning.

1Corinthians 8:13 - ¹³Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

If getting paid is going to be a hindrance to the gospel, I will not get paid. If eating meat is a hindrance to the gospel, you should not eat meat. Whatever we would do that we would claim would be a right, if that becomes a hindrance to the growth in the gospel or hindrance to receiving the gospel, we should be willing and ready to lay that down. Do you see what he is saying?

As an example, think about this in relationship with social media, do we have the right to post what we want? Do we have the right to share our opinions? Do we have the right to advocate and put posts that advocate for things that are important to us online? Don't we have a 1st amendment right, don't we have free speech? We are Americans, we have a right to this. What if your right could cause another believer to stumble. What if your right could be an impediment to the gospel because someone might see something that you would post and that becomes a stumbling block to believe in Jesus. Are you willing to lay that down? It can feel good to post something, doesn't it? Then we come back and check it, and people will like it, and they will comment and say you are right, and that reinforces the narrative. But do you think those posts move the needle on anybody? Let us be honest, it is either going to reinforce people that agree with you or off putting to others. But just as a personal testimony, I have had people come to me who have had difficulty remaining in this church. I have had the testimony of other pastors come to me with young people that have left the church, not just worship but left the church because of posts that they have seen online. What we see are the people that like what we write, and we see what people comment. What we do not see are the people that see it and do not comment and what are they thinking? What is their reaction? You might say I do not care; it is my right. The apostle Paul said, “would you rather endure anything rather than being a stumbling block?” Your posts might actually cause people to think that person was a leader in our church and look at what they posted. That person was my youth leader when I was growing up and look at what they posted. That was someone I respected. Looking at what they posted I don't know if I can belong there. I have left the church because those people and those posts made me feel like if I did not agree with them on that issue, I could not even be a Christian. If that is the case, I am not a Christian. Those are actual sentiments of actual people. That should cause us to pause not because what we believe, but if exercising the right becomes a stumbling block to believing in Jesus, what's more important? What is the priority? As we consider the one who laid down all of his rights, if anybody could exert any right in all of history, that was Jesus himself. The Bible says although he had all the rights, he laid them all down. He took on the form of a servant the Bible says, and he laid down his life. That there would be no obstacle to reconciliation with God, our maker, our creator, our sustainer, and our redeemer.

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