February 19, 2006 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it. Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus was a poor man who begged at the rich man’s table every day. He also happened to be a believer. The rich man, however, with all of his riches, had discarded Christ and his need for forgiveness. Therefore, when the rich man died, he went to the agonies of hell, while Lazarus - as a believer - went to the luxuries of heaven. The rich man, as the story goes - was in a world of hurt down in hell. Luke 16:24 says that he called out to Abraham, “have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” The explanations of hell - such as this one - are absolutely terrifying. Revelation calls it a “lake of fire.” Jesus says there will be an eternity of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Imagine just for a moment if God opened the crevice of hell for a second - giving you a glimpse of what hell was like - listening to thousands upon thousands of people moaning and groaning due to the intense pain and agony of living in pure hell. It was such an awful experience that the rich man begged that Lazarus would raise from the dead to go and warn his brothers of the pending disaster. Abraham wouldn’t allow it.
Here’s the situation for us however. We are living with those brothers of the rich man - who have not yet entered hell. Through the eyes of faith we have seen the depths of hell and the riches of heaven - and here we stand on the edge of both - along with thousands of other people whose eternal fate has not yet come upon them. We don’t have to cross an impassible abyss to get to them. They are right here with us. We haven’t come to the point that we can sit at Abraham’s side and claim immunity from reaching out. So you have a choice. Either you are going to get off of your rear end and try and save some people, or you are going to just watch them slide into hell. The attitude of Paul was definitely not the latter of the two. He was very proactive in trying to reach out to lost souls. What motivated him? What did he do? He reveals that in today’s text in a two thousand year old type of “Biography.” In it we’ll listen as -
Paul Reveals His Compulsions
I. What compelled him?
If you and I literally did witness just one second of hell, don’t you think it would effect us tremendously? Who of us would not be so horrified, so petrified, and so scared, that we would go running to our children, neighbors, and ourselves - to tell them about Christ. That had to be a part of what motivated Paul, wouldn’t you say? Here he was - on the way to Damascus - ready to put more Christians to jail and death - and then Jesus shows up in a bright light and says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting ME?” Whoa - talk about a scary moment! Here the guy whom he thought was a phony - was actually resurrected from the dead and staring him in the face! Whoa! Paul must have thought, “I’m a goner for sure!” There are some awesome instances in the Bible of God scaring the “begeebees” out of people. Mt. Sinai had the people at the bottom of the mountain absolutely terrified as they saw the thunder and lightning. When Ananias and Sapphira were both instantly put to death for lying to God - the church also was pretty scared at that point. It motivated the people to burn their evil books and really reform. If we really witnessed such a fearful place, I can’t help but imagine that each and every one of us would tell a lot more people about Christ.
It’s kind of sad, isn’t it? Why should showing us hell be any different from describing it in the Bible? If we really had faith - and trusted more in what God said - just reading it would be enough. But our flesh is just so thick -that we become desensitized to hell. It’s like watching violence and sex on TV for so long - pretty soon it becomes a laughing matter instead of a terrible offense. In the same way, since we’ve already heard about hell plenty of times - we don’t think about the fact that if our neighbors and friends don’t repent and believe in Christ they will burn eternally in a lake of fire. So we sit on our hands and close our mouths and do nothing - waiting for our neighbors to say to us, “could I go to church with you?” We don’t carry half the zeal of our fellow Christians who lived during the persecution. It’s absolutely atrocious how bad we are at evangelism. There is no excuse for it. We should be ashamed of ourselves. If you didn’t even try to invite ONE person to the Andrew Plan or try to tell one person about Jesus in the last year - why not? Honestly, you’re going to tell me there wasn’t one person you could at least find to invite to a Bible study? I can believe in heaven and hell and angels and demons - but THAT - I find that hard to believe.
This shame may make you slink down in your seats - and I hope it does - and it may motivate you to try a little harder in your outreach efforts. But shame and fear usually doesn’t last long. It will only last as long as a few minutes, and then you’ll move on to the next stage in your life. Even God’s thunder and lightning at Mt. Sinai didn’t hinder some of the Israelites from making golden calves shortly thereafter. There has to be a greater motivation - a more lasting compulsion - to get us to tell about Christ.
What is that something? Let’s look at Paul. He talked about what “compelled” him to reach out to lost souls. It was the Gospel. The “gospel” literally means the good news - the good news of Christ - that He died and rose from the dead for the sins of the world - including Paul. Paul recognized that since Jesus also died for him - all those rotten things he had done to Christians - dragging them out of their homes - hurling rocks at their heads and rejoicing at their deaths - it was all paid for by Jesus. That’s what God promises us who have failed as evangelists as well. He says, “I still died for you. I still love you - in spite of your sin.” In conjunction with this Paul talks about three significant things that he realized as a result of the Gospel - “I am free and belong to no man . . . I myself am not under the law . . . I am under Christ’s law.”
Paul recognized he belonged to no man. Think of what pressure Paul must have lived under as a Pharisee when he used to live under a system of checks and balances, where he and his fellow Pharisees would examine each other and compete with each other to make sure their tassels were straight, their robes were pressed, and their steps were made just right. When he was made a Christian, all of those concerns were gone. Earlier in Corinthians he wrote it this way, 1 Corinthians 4:3-4 “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.” When he recognized that Jesus would be his judge, it didn’t worry him over the fact that his fellow Jews now judged him as a turncoat and a complete scumbag. Since he knew that Jesus died for him, God loved him, and that God owned him, he no longer felt the restraints of trying to beat out his fellow Pharisees in their acts of righteousness. It didn’t matter to him WHAT they thought of him. It must have been like a huge weight being left off of his shoulders.
The second thing that compelled him was the fact that he was no longer under the law. Imagine how difficult it would have been to be a Jew in the Old Testament. You had to watch what you ate, what you touched, what you wore. Put on top of that all of the extra legalistic interpretations of the Pharisees and Sadducees - and it would have been an impossible system to live under. Guilt was a major factor. Here Jesus came and said to Paul, “I already obeyed all those laws as your substitute. You are no longer bound by them. You are free from them.” What a huge burden off of him again.
The third thing that compelled him was that he was “under Christ’s law.” That seems like a strange statement. When we think of Christ, we think of NO laws - no burdens - no restrictions - only forgiveness and salvation. Yet this is exactly what “Christ’s law” actually is. Jesus put it really simply. When the people asked him “what must we do to do the works that God requires?”, Jesus said, “the work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29) The “law of Christ” is the principle that states - “salvation is found in no one else - for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” It is the principle in which God has declared that you are free from your guilt and your sins through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for you. It’s the principle which states salvation is not based on what you do - but on what Christ did for you. Christ’s law is that He is the way, the truth and the life. That’s what compelled Paul to be one of the greatest evangelists ever - the Gospel of Christ! He didn’t have to tell anyone about Christ to get to heaven. He was already given heaven. It was free.
Isn’t this the kind of compulsion God loves? He loves a CHEERFUL giver. Sure, we could force our kids to go on two year mission journeys like the Mormons do. We could use lots of law to guilt ourselves into doing lots of things we don’t want to do. But is God pleased with such forced obedience? Try a different compulsion. Meditate on Christ more. What if you could live life without worrying about whether you were dressed right or were popular? What if you didn’t obsess over how much you weigh? What if you could live without constantly feeling guilty over what a lousy evangelist you are? What if you didn’t worry about saying the “wrong thing”? What if it didn’t matter to you whether you died with a million dollars or three dollars? When you see Christ, God opens your eyes to heaven. He says to you, “here is a cross. Here is an empty grave. Here is a clear and free pathway to heaven. It is all yours in your baptism. It is all yours through faith - not works.” That is the message that frees you. You realize that all the things that this world worries about - that Americans worry about - that even Christians constantly feel guilty about - don’t matter half as much as they think they do. It introduces to you a whole different kingdom that lasts eternally. It makes you say to yourself, “even though I’m not the perfect evangelist, father, mother or child - even though I’m not the most popular or the most talented - Jesus died for me and I’m going to heaven. I’m forgiven. I really wish other people had that joy and that freedom of knowing that.” That’s why the cross and the empty grave are such central features to our theology - because only the Gospel gives us this Paul like compulsion.
II. What did it compel him to do?
When you get someone who is really convicted about something, he or she will do some crazy things. I remember before the Iraqi war - one guy by the name of Ken O’Keefe was so up in arms about it that he was going to fly to Iraq and try and form a human brigade around Iraq so the Americans wouldn’t come in. They called themselves “Human Shield Action.” I thought, “these people are nuts.” Yet in my head I knew they weren’t really crazy, they were just thoroughly convinced in their cause. When you have strong convictions, you are also usually willing to take strong ACTIONS. People do incredible things when they feel a compulsion to.
Paul is a prime example of this. He put himself in situations where he was shipwrecked, stoned, beaten and even started a few riots in different towns. The gospel specifically compelled Paul to do lots of things he would never have done otherwise. He even makes a list of them in today’s text. First of all he says, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. Imagine doing that, volunteering to become a slave to EVERYONE. He then goes on to explain in what ways he did this to himself.
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. An example of this is found in Acts 21. In this section, Paul was being accused of telling the Jews to turn away from Moses. In order to make Paul look better in the eyes of the Jews, he had his head shaved, went through some purification rights for a week with four other men and even paid their expenses. They also told the Gentiles not to eat food that was sacrificed to idols even though there was nothing wrong with it in and of themselves. Imagine if you came to church this morning and I asked all of the men of the congregation to shave their heads and pay extra money for some purification rights so that we could witness to a Jewish family across the street. How many of you would be willing to do that, just so we could tell them about Christ? Paul didn’t squawk about it. He was glad to make that sacrifice.
What else was Paul willing to do? To those not having the law I became like one not having the law. Paul was brought up to believe that Gentiles are no more than heathen dogs - that their food and their houses are full of sin and filthy in God’s sight. How difficult would it be, after being indoctrinated with that from early on - to go to a Gentiles house and actually eat pork and other meats with them? How strange would it seem to actually hang out with them and converse with them! Here he had lived his whole life and taught people to uphold the laws of Moses, but now he was teaching that it wasn’t necessary to uphold these laws in order to get to heaven. He was even willing to live like a Gentile in order to win Gentiles. It mattered more to him to get the Gospel into their hearts than whether or not he liked eating pork or working on Saturdays.
Finally, Paul said, “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” Remember that Paul had to live and lead a group of both Jews and Gentiles. Some of them were trained that eating meat sacrificed to idols was wrong, whereas others had no qualms of conscience about it. Under the new covenant, there was nothing wrong with it in and of itself - but since it was perceived to be sinful by the Jews - they needed to be trained that it was ok. This is all explained by Paul in chapter eight of Corinthians. So what did Paul decide to do? Instead of freely exercising his liberty because he knew better, he refrained from eating this meat among the Jews. He “became weak” and refrained from some of his freedoms until the weak could be properly trained. That’s what Christian love demanded of him. Otherwise, these weak people would cut off all contact with him and not give him the opportunity to share Christ at all.
There is a much greater example of this in the Bible. In order to win the weak, the God of the heavens became a baby. He became weak. Not only did He become a human, he took it a step further and played the role of a son, a servant, and a physician. At the end and climax of this slavery that He put Himself under, Jesus took the ultimate step of weakness - when He became not only man - but sinful man - on the cross. Jesus experienced the ultimate weakness - in experiencing death and the wrath of God on the tree. Not only did the God of the heavens come down to the earth, but He even went down to the depths of hell - to take us from His own wrath and rescue us from Satan’s grasp. Why did He do this? He became all things to all men so that by all possible means he might save some. Jesus didn’t have to do these things. He was perfectly righteous and holy in heaven. He didn’t need us there. Yet in his grace and mercy He wanted us there. So He became weak in order to win the weak.
It’s that weakness of the cross that makes us sit here this morning in humble awe and gratitude. God gave up all of His rights and strengths just to make us strong. Now, we see a world of weak slaves throughout our society. We see the young Mormon missionaries who think that they are fulfilling their duty to God by knocking on doors and living by whatever their prophet tells them to do. We see young men and women who have no sets of rules and are living by whatever their bodies tell them to do. We see slaves of guilt and slaves of depravity. Many of these people are playing basketball with us, working by our sides, and going to school with us. We are living among the brothers of the rich man - people who are blind to the danger they are in - while we - with our eyes of faith - see the eternal pathways of heaven and hell. We see the danger our friends and neighbors and enemies are in. We are not like Lazarus. We can still talk to them. We can still make the effort. It will take time - time to get to know somebody you’ve never met so that you can gain the trust to tell them about Christ. It may take money - money to send missionaries out into the world - to places where we can’t go. It may take risk - the willingness to try and say something - even if you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing. It may take courage - opening up the possibility of being laughed at or ridiculed. Every situation is different - and so is every opportunity. No matter what situation you have - just say in your mind, “whatever it takes God - whatever it takes. Beat me. Humble me. Ridicule me. Make me weak. Do what you want. Compel me with Christ to spread the light of Christ and save as many souls as possible.”
Sometimes when you watch the biography of famous men, it makes you wish you could be like them. Paul gives us an awesome example of what Christ can do through and with someone. The point of this sermon however, is not to say, “Lord, make me like Paul.” You are not Paul and you never will be. You are the individual God made you to be, and you have been given the same Holy Spirit and forgiveness that Paul was given. Your situation is completely unique and different from Paul’s. God hasn’t called you to spread the Gospel in Asia. But you do have your own circle of family and friends to witness to. All I’m telling you today is first and foremost focus on the Gospel. Remember always that you are forgiven and Christ died for you. Ask God for the courage and the zeal to say to God, “whatever it takes Lord, I’m here to serve. I want others to know about Christ.” You may not win thousands or even hundreds to Christ. But even if the Holy Spirit brings one convert through your service, it will be worth the effort. The possibility of seeing one more person in heaven is all the compulsion we need. Amen.
