Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Opening Illustration: He is No Fool

Jim Elliot is one of recent history’s most remembered missionaries.

He picked up the call to take the good news of Jesus Christ the nations.

And the Lord laid on his heart to reach a particular tribe in Ecaudor that had had absolutley zero contact with the outside world.

Jim Elliot and his fellow missionaries were killed by that tribe one of their first encounters.

In an amazing turn of events, Jim’s widowed wife would return to that same tribe and see many of them won to Christ.

Seven years before his death, Jim was journaling one day, reflecting on the Scriptures when he wrote some words that have been echoed throughout Christianity ever since.

He wrote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

Personal

Our world is full of the temptation to place an oversized priority on those things in life which we cannot keep: Our money, our possessions, our homes, our stuff.

Likewise our world is full of the temptation to underemphasize the one thing that will define our eternity—that is our relationship with through Jesus—the one thing we were made for above all else.

What would you give up to gain that which you could never lose?

Or perhaps what would you be unwilling to give up.

After all, many of us know the story of the rich young ruler who was unable to follow Jesus for love of his money and possessions.

What has a hold of your heart, your mind, and your grip, more than a desparate desire to follow Christ, and help others follow the same?

Context of Chapters 8-10

We are studying 1 Corinthians, a letter by the Apostle Paul to the early first century in Corinth.

And we are in this section of chapters 8-10 which deal particularly with a sensitive question this early New Testament Church had.

For them this was a very relevant question because it came up in their lives almost every day.

Now that we’re Christians, and we’re no longer polytheists who worship many gods, are we permitted to eat the food that is offered in the meat markets if we know it is meat that has been offered to idols.

Now that question sounds so foreign and unrelatable to us.

But what we discovered is that while we are not asking that question about food offered to idols, in many ways we are asking very similar questions.

Now that I’m a Christian, how ought my life look different from the way it used to look, from the way the rest of society looks.

It’s a collision of Christ and culture, and our faith in Jesus will now guide and inform the 10,000 decisions we make on a daily.

In chapter 8 we saw that when it comes decision making, our guiding principle is a desparate desire to build others up in Christ.

We’re willing to go without, to not make use of our freedom in Christ, in order to never put a stumbling block in front of a weaker believer or even a nonbeliever.

Big Idea

In our text today, Paul illustrates that principle by pointing to his own life.

It’s a very particular illustration that is going to serve as a launching pad to investigate our own hearts, our own lives, and our own motivations.

The illustration Paul chooses to use to explain this principle is how he handles money.

The big idea that I want you to walk away with today comes straight from the pen of Jim Elliot, ‘He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain that which he cannot lose.’

The Setup

We’re going to begin in chapter 9, verses 1-12.

These verse serve as Paul’s setup.

He’s going to lay down a very simple principle which forms the backdrop of this idea.

1 Corinthians 9:1-2 “1 Am I not free?

Am I not an apostle?

Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?

Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? 2 If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.”

Paul begins in this section by proving a point.

The point is very simple.

I am an Apostle.

And the proof of my Apostleship is two fold.

First, Paul had seen Jesus face to face on the Road to Damascus.

And secondly, the Corinthian is evidence of his Apostolic ministry of planting Churches.

An Apostle Has Rights

He goes on,

1 Corinthians 9:4-7 “4 Do we not have the right to eat and drink? 5 Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?

7 Who 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?”

Paul here is speaking in very plain and clear language.

He’s not trying to bulldoze anybody, he’s asking a series of obviously rhetorical questions about the simple rights of an Apostle.

He has a right to eat and drink.

He has a right be married (like the Apostle Peter.

And he leans into a point that was probbaly a bit sensitive for the Corinthians that Paul has a right to a paycheck for what he does.

‘Is it only Barnabus and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?’

He’s getting to main point which is that by what is right, what is correct, he should be getting a paycheck from this Corinthian Church.

Even the Law of God Supports This

Then he doubles on down on this logic by referencing the Mosaic Law.

1 Corinthians 9:8-11 “8 Do I say these things on human authority?

Does not the Law say the same? 9 For 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?

10 Does he not certainly speak for our sake?

It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop.

11 If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?”

In other words, not only is it obvious that of course I have a right to get paid for the work I do, but even the Mosaic Law is supports these rights.

He appeals to a bit of an abscure law in the Mosaic law found in Deuteronomy 25.

It was a law about animal welfare and it instructed God’s people in the Old Testament that not to starve their working animals.

He takes the civil law of the Old Testament, and he discovers the principle behind that civil law and he applies that principle into his own life.

In effect Paul is saying, “The law was good and protected animals, but underneath that law we saw a reflection of the heart of God, namely that a worker is worth his wages.”

What is Paul’s Point?

In the next few verses Paul is going to lay out his case of why he has chosen to give up his rights and not receive a paycheck from them.

But I want to first connect some dots for us.

Paul is using very Americanized language here.

It’s Individualistic.

I have rights.

And its true.

You and I have rights/freedoms/blessings even that are ours to enjoy by right.

And in our context in America, often Christians allow the story to stop there.

Particularly on the topic of money, American Christians often think very individualistically about wealth, assets, homes, stuff.

And the reason we think individualistically is because its not legally wrong to do so.

In fact Capitalistic economies were designed by Christians thinking Christianly.

But—to use an appropriate pun—the buck doesn’t stop there.

Giving Up What You Cannot Keep

The Apostle now shifts beyond what is legally is, and describes the great blessings of giving up what you cannot keep.

1 Corinthians 9:12-15 “12 …Nevertheless, 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.

13 Do 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?

14 In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

15 But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision.

For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.”

Paul’s Working Principle When It Comes to Money

“We have not made use of this right.”

In other words, I chose to not put you in a position Corinthian Church where I would take a paycheck from you, and what is his reason in verse 12, “because he would endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.”

Paul is considering how he handles money.

And he has this principle he works off of, a principle that is deeper than the letter of the law.

His deepest desire is to honor God and build others up in Christ.

This is the same principle he was trying to get them to understand in chapter 8.