Paul's Focus - Active Works Not Empty Behavior Series

ermon Brief

Date Written: July 25, 2014

Date Preached: July 27, 2014

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: A Series in 1 Corinthians

Sermon Title: Paul’s FOCUS – Active Works not Empty Behavior

Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 [NLT]

24Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Essence of the Text: Paul used these verses as an illustration for his attitude toward his service to God!

Essence of the Sermon: These verses are also an illustration of what our attitude must be toward serving God!

Main Question(s) of the Sermon: What is your attitude toward serving God today?

Applicable Objective of the Sermon: You will hear the:

WORD PROCLAIMED: Paul’s claimed he was willing to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to see people come to Christ. Paul’s focus on doing anything to see people won to Christ drove him to discipline himself to achieve that goal.

WORD EXPLAINED: Our service to Christ must be the same ‘sold out’ attitude as Paul and our service must be filled with hard work and discipline. Serving God cannot be done by just going thru the motions…

WORD MADE PERSONAL: What is your focus today? Are you willing to discipline yourself to do what it takes? Or are you going to settle for ‘good enough’?

Introduction

Have you ever done things but there was no true focus or passion behind your actions?

Have you ever used the phrase, ‘that is good enough’ in reference to your service to God?

Have you ever found yourself ‘going thru the motions’ in your Christian walk?

Sometimes as a pastor I know that I can find myself doing things for God or serving the church because I know I have to, but my passion for Christ is not there.

I know that if I am not careful & extremely focused with my attitude, I can find myself ‘going thru the motions’of serving God.

I also know I see the same thing in the church today! I see believers come to church, they come to Sunday school, they give their tithe, they may even come on Wed night –

ALL ON A REGULAR/CONSISTENT basis, BUT in reality their focus is NOT on seeing souls won to Christ… and if that is NOT our focus then we are just sleep-walking or going thru the motions of being a follower of Christ.

We all know that we are called to work hard at everything we do because we are actually working FOR Jesus, no matter if it is our office or at school or just being a neighbor…

BUT so often I believe Christians today are NOT focused like they should be… their attitude is to do what they want to do and when called by God… their heart just isn’t in it.

This message is a challenge to EVERYONE here this morning to re-evaluate your focus… to re-evaluate your attitude of service to the One YOU call Savior!

You see, Paul WAS sold out to do ANYTHING it took to see others won to Christ. This was his attitude about doing ministry…about serving God! This was his Focus!

So far in ch9 we have seen that Paul was not FOCUSED in HIS rights, but on WHAT was right…

We have also seen how Paul’s FOCUS was on Souls won and NOT how it was done…

Finally this morning we are going to take a look at Paul’s Focus on how he did things…on his attitude of service!

I believe he uses these verses to give us a great illustration about how to properly serve God. You see to Paul serving God was about Active Works and NOT Empty Behavior.

Our text this morning is 1 Cor 9:22-27… What I want to do this morning is go back to where we ended last week and pick things back up…

If you remember [and I pray you do] last week we learned that Paul was willing to do anything to see people come to know Christ [read v22-23 here] he said:

I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel,

We learned Paul’s attitude ABOUT the Gospel -- that he was willing to do ANYTHING to share the Gospel! This week we are going to look at how Paul illustrates that attitude…We will see what Paul tells us is required to have what I would call a “I will do ANYTHING attitude” to share the Gospel.