-Have you ever been judged unfairly by others?
-Has anyone ever looked down on you for something they thought you did?
-Have you ever received a punishment for something that you didn’t do?
-That is what the Apostle Paul is dealing with in chapter 9 of his first letter to the Corinthians
-A number of theologians think that this is an interpolation by a later editor
-I think they believe this because they don’t see how it fits into the wider discussion.
-In chapter 10, Paul picks up the discussion of food sacrificed to idols once again so it makes sense that this is an extension of the argument in chapter 8 not to eat food sacrificed to idols if it is harming the consciences of other Christians.
-Similarly, in chapters 12 and 14, Paul discusses the proper use of different spiritual gifts but in chapter 13 he talks about love. He uses the discussion on love to demonstrate how they should be using their spiritual gifts.
-By the end, my goal is that you see how it fits in and how this applies to us today. {PAUSE}
-When I was a young second lieutenant stationed at Ft. Riley, I had just arrived at the post in late June, early July after a year at Ft. Benning going through different training courses. Most of my battalion was off doing an exercise in Louisiana.
-When everyone returned we went through training up for and testing for the Expert Infantryman’s Badge and then my company was being deployed to Germany for a REFORGER exercise attached to a tank battalion.
-We went to Germany and our task force did not do very well in the exercise. Since it couldn’t possibly have been the tank commander’s fault for the poor execution, he told our battalion commander that we had not performed well.
-All of the lieutenants in the two companies that went were called in front of the commander and we were yelled at and threatened for about a half hour. A few minutes into the meeting, I was absolutely seething. I couldn’t believe it. I had been stationed at Ft. Riley for exactly five months and my military career was over because someone lied about me to save their own skin. When I cooled down, I was deeply hurt. {PAUSE}
-I can imagine that Paul felt a little like that in his dealings with the Corinthians. He had spent a year and a half with them and all that he had worked for was falling apart. The church was in turmoil. They were fighting each other and him. What a mess! He probably wanted to give up.
-That’s what I wanted to do. Believe me.
-I thought about it but my ego and self-respect wouldn’t allow that to happen.
-I weighed my options and realized that no matter how much I tried to explain what happened in Germany, I wasn’t going to matter. The only way to prove my commander “wrong” was to work my tail off and hope that he noticed.
-Fortunately, for my sake, we got a new company commander a month later who actually gave a rip about us. He was everything that our old commander was not. He taught us what all the infantry schools in the world could not. He really taught us how to do our jobs and started to fill us with confidence in what we were accomplishing. We started doing a lot better in our train up for our National Training Center rotation that winter.
-I also got a new platoon sergeant that was a hard-charger. He started cracking the whip on the younger NCOs and soldiers. My platoon ended up getting the top gunnery score in our battalion. I got a great gunner for my vehicle and we had the best score in the battalion in our gunnery practice scores.
-We again didn’t do particularly well in our exercise in the Mojave desert but at least this time, our task force commander couldn’t blame us for his demise, we had proven ourselves to be faithful. We had done all the right things. {PAUSE}
-Basically, that is what Paul is talking about in this chapter. He is explaining his actions. But why?
-In chapter 4, he alludes to what was happening in Corinth. He writes, “So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.”
-Apparently, some of the Corinthians were judging, condemning and looking down on Paul probably because of some of the things that were happening in their church. {PAUSE}
-Wasn’t it a year ago when some pilots from Minot flew to Barksdale with nukes on board and nobody caught it until several hours after the plane landed. Who got fired?
-The Wing commander, the Ops and Maintenance Group commanders, and the Munitions Squadron commander.
-Where they the ones that attached the weapons to the plane and flew it? No!
-Whose fault is it when some people in an organization really mess up? In the military, it is the commander’s fault. They didn’t provide the acceptable leadership to make sure their troops accomplished the mission.
-When soldiers in my battalion got DUIs, the platoon leader and company commander answered to the battalion commander why that troop messed up.
-How about in the church? Is it the church planter’s fault when the people are messing up? Is it the pastor’s? Is it the apostle’s fault? Jesus’ fault?
-It could be.
-The Bible says that we are our brothers and sisters keeper. It teaches that we have a responsibility as a watchman to warn others of their impending doom.
-However, that denies personal responsibility which the Bible also teaches. We clearly go to heaven only because of God’s grace. On the other hand, we go to hell based on our own disobedience and denial of God’s gift. {PAUSE}
-There was a movie that came out in the last year about the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper which was stolen from him by the automakers.
-He fought them in court for twenty years. They offered him all kinds of money but they were never willing to admit that it was his invention until the end.
-Does a person who works for something have the right to gain benefit from their labor? Obviously!
-You see, the Apostle Paul is defending himself against those who are constantly criticizing him. He demonstrates that he obviously has the right to gain benefits, like not having to pay his own way or take a wife with him on his journeys.
-However, he says that he did not want to be a burden to them or allow them to think that he was sharing this message about Jesus only to get paid. He didn’t want his needs to get in the way of their faith.
-That is the key to seeing how this ties into chapters 8 and 10.
-Remember how at the end of chapter 8, Paul writes that, “if food causes my brother to fall, I will never eat meat again.”
-He doesn’t want anything that he does to get in the way of a person faith and their entrance into heaven.
-That is why he says in this section of scripture that to the Jews he became like a Jew, to those not having the law he became like one not having the law.
-He did it so that all might have a chance to get to heaven.
-He did not want anyone to be impeded from getting into heaven because of him. {PAUSE}
-The question is have you done anything to impede others from getting into heaven?
-I know I have
-After I went to Promise Keepers in 1995, my faith life really took off. I really got involved in my local church like never before. I helped with a couple of youth groups. I joined our evangelism team, where I met Linda.
-But not long after, I became a Pharisee, judging everyone around me for their bad behavior.
-I was probably responsible for impeding others from getting into heaven. {PAUSE}
-Fortunately for us, God has sent us some special gifts to help us get into heaven.
-First, God sent Jesus who didn’t claim any of His rights as God but came to serve us by paying for our sins by His death on the cross.
-In addition, God sent the Holy Spirit to cause us to trust in Jesus and what He has done for us.
-The Holy Spirit’s job, contrary to what some believe is not to make a big ruckus over Himself but to point us to Jesus.
-That makes our job of sharing the gospel and being good witnesses easier.
-Even when we think we mess up, God can actually get some good things accomplished. {PAUSE}
-When I spent a quarter at seminary doing jail ministry at the St. Louis County Jail, I was talking to this one kid who was awaiting trial. He was accused of rape.
-During one conversation, he told me that it was a sex for drugs deal gone bad.
-I asked him if that made it right.
-He got storming mad. He starting just yelling at me. He made me lift up my shirt to prove I wasn’t wearing a wire. He made a big scene and walked away.
-I thought that I had really messed it up.
-I came back the following week and he motioned for me to come over and talk to him. He wanted to hear all about what Jesus had done for him.
-May we all mess up that badly for Jesus’ sake.
