Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 70 in your hardbacked hymnal. Holy, holy, holy. Let's all stand together. Number
70. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Early in the morning our song
shall rise to Thee. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and
mighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints
adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy
sea. Cherubim and Seraphim, falling
down before thee, which wert and art and evermore shall be. ? Holy, holy, holy ? ? Though the
darkness hide thee ? ? Though the eye of sinful man ? ? Thy
glory may not see ? ? Only thou art holy ? ? There is none beside
thee ? Perfect in power, in love and
purity. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
All thy works shall praise thy name In earth and sky and sea
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons,
blessed Trinity. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to continue our study
in 1 Corinthians. We're at chapter 9. Chapter 9
in 1 Corinthians. I'm sure you don't need to be
reminded that next weekend, this coming weekend, is a long-awaited-for
and prayed-for and hoped-for meeting that's just so hopeful
that the Lord's going to meet with us. enable us to hear the
gospel, enable Todd and Chris to preach the gospel, enable
us to worship together. I know there are several brethren
from other places that are going to be here, other churches, and
so it'll be a good time of fellowship with them. Pray the Lord will enable us
to think about that this week and to ask him for a very special
blessing. And as I've said every year,
these are times, you know, you have friends and family members
that you want to hear the gospel. And sometimes they will agree
to come to a special meeting when they won't come on a regular
basis. So, invite them. We'll have our first meeting
Friday night at 7 and then Saturday morning and then Sunday morning
and the weekend like always will go by much too quickly, so. That's next weekend. Alright. Let's let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we ask that you would be pleased now to meet with us. We pray
that your Holy Spirit would. Open the mystery of the gospel.
Reveal to us the glory of thy dear son. Cause us Lord to rejoice. In the revelation of truth that
you've given us in your word. Pray that you would enable me
to speak with simplicity and clarity. Compassion. Pray you'd give us all ears to
hear the voice of our Savior as he calls each of his sheep
by name and that we would be brought by your spirit to follow
after him. Father, we do pray for Todd and
Chris and ask Lord that you would meet with them as they preach
this morning and that you would prepare their hearts for the
messages that you would have us to hear next weekend. Pray
for our brethren that'll be traveling to come here and pray that you
give them safe travels and that you would attend to those meetings
next weekend and bless us with your presence and enable us,
Lord, to worship you in the power of your spirit and according
to the truth of your word. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I've titled this study, Undeterred. The Apostle Paul is defending
his apostolic authority to the church in Corinth, who have been
influenced by the gainsayers who have come in behind the Apostle
Paul and called into question his authority. Now, he's not
at least surprised by the opposition that there is to the gospel.
That's always the case from the world. The gospel is contrary
to everything that this world holds dear. It's contrary to
all the religions of this world. And the cross is always going
to be offensive to the natural man. There's an offense to his
pride, offense to his dignity, offense to his righteousness.
The gospel of God's free grace gives all glory to Christ and
men won't have it. They won't have it. They'll hate
it. They'll oppose it. They'll resist
it at every turn. The thing that burdens the Apostle
Paul so much now in this chapter is that all of those oppositions
have seemed to find a sympathetic ear among the believers. And I don't know if I hope that this chapter will
be a blessing to you, but I know it's been a blessing to me. You can't be a gospel preacher
without being the target of all that opposition that I just spoke
of. And yet, the thing that that
wounds the pastor's heart the most is when those who confess
to believe the gospel oppose the gospel. uh... when they oppose
the preacher and uh... call into question uh... his
truthfulness and his authority uh... every gospel preacher knows
something about that and uh... what encourages me about this
chapter is that you would think that there was if there was ever
a gospel preacher who would be above the fray when it comes
to uh... uh... having opposition from confessing
believers, it would be the Apostle Paul. I mean, this man had extraordinary
spiritual gifts that manifested themselves in being able to perform
miracles, to authenticate his apostolic authority. he performed
miracles uh... uh... but you know i can just
only imagine that the authority and uh... the heart in which
he preached and uh... for him to have opposition from
the church uh... encourages my heart uh... because you know what it's it's
hard sometimes uh... gospel preachers you know they
they uh... uh... well it takes it takes
a it's it's an impossible task i don't wanna in any way toot
my horn but i'd just i'd just know something about the burden
that God puts on the hearts of his pastors for his people. And it never goes away. It's 24-7. If you have a job
that you can walk away from when you go home at night, enjoy it,
because your pastor doesn't. It's always, always, always there. And I'm encouraged that Paul
experienced some of this disappointment and some of this discouragement.
because I'm not anywhere near in his league. And if they gave
it to him, surely they'll do it to anybody else. So this chapter
has been a great encouragement to your pastor, and I hope that
it will be to you as well. He begins by saying, Am I not
an apostle? Am I not sent of God? That's what an apostle is, a
messenger, a sent one. He's speaking of those twelve
men. that God chose to be used in
starting the church. Paul, of course, was an apostle
called out of due time, as he refers to his calling. He wasn't
part of the original twelve. He was the replacement for Judas. and called out by God after the
ascension of Christ to be the apostle to the Gentiles, which
this church would have been a Gentile church. And so he says, am I
not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen
Jesus Christ, our Lord?" Now, one of the requirements for being an apostle
was to have a direct encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, which
the Apostle Paul had. He had it on several occasions.
He had it on the road to Damascus when the Lord spoke to him audibly
from heaven and shined the light down. Saul saw, why persecutest
thou me? Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest." And the Lord spoke to him and met with
him again when he was caught up into the third heaven and
saw things that were unspeakable. And then when he went to Arabia,
he spends three years in Arabia being taught of the Lord the
gospel. and the only other place this
is interesting to me the only other place arabia is mentioned
in the scriptures is to identify the place where mount sinai yes
and uh... no preacher or teacher or penman
of scripture was more clear on defining the difference between
law and grace than was the Apostle Paul. And can you not see Paul
there at the foot of Mount Sinai uh... being taught personally
the gospel by the lord and uh... and seen the the clear contrast
between uh... a gospel of works based on the
law and a gospel of grace based on the finished work of the lord
jesus christ uh... so paul had many encounters with
christ and uh... and he's he's having to to tell
them, remind them that the Lord has revealed himself to Paul,
that he is an apostle, and he says, are not you my work in
the Lord? If God has called a man to preach
the gospel, there's going to be evidence of that in the salvation
of sinners. And so, Paul says, look among
your own church. I was the one who brought the
gospel to Corinth. And many of you that are still
part of that church were there when I first came and preached
the gospel. And you ought to be evidence
yourself that I am a gospel preacher. Now Paul's not defending himself
to the Judaizers. Those were the false prophets
that were coming in behind the Apostle Paul and calling into
question his gospel authority. He's not concerned about them,
that's going to happen. He's concerned about the influence
that those men are having on the believers. And so he's speaking
to the church. If I be not an apostle unto others,
yea, doubtless I am to you. If they don't call me an apostle,
surely you know that I am. For the seal of my apostleship
are you in the Lord." You heard the gospel from me. You were
there when the miracles were performed. You saw them. My answer to them that do examine
me is this. Now he's going to answer the
question with questions, and that's often a good way to answer
questions, isn't it? The Lord did it on many occasions,
and now Paul's going to use a form of rhetoric, asking rhetorical
questions to put to shame those who would entertain the idea
that he wasn't an apostle. Verse 4, have we not power to
eat and to drink? He's already dealt with that
subject in the previous chapters about the eating of meat and
the freedom to drink. We're not under a law when it
comes to eating and drinking, whether we eat or whether we
drink or whatsoever we do, we do it all to the glory of God. Have we not, this word power
means authority. Do we not have the right? Do
we not have the authority? Do we not have the freedom to
do this? Have we not power to lead about? Now the literal translation here
is sister wife. It was an idiom that was used
in Hebrew language because the wife was considered that close
union of a sister. And so he's not saying a sister,
can we not bring a sister around with us? He's talking about a
wife. Do I not have the right to be
married? as well as other apostles, as
the other apostles are, and as the brethren of the Lord, James
in particular, who's the pastor of the church at Jerusalem, and
Cephas, who is Peter. Now here's a clear scripture
that declares Peter's got a wife. And it was another place where
the Lord went into Peter's mother-in-law's home. So, you know, the evidence
that Peter was married is clear in the Scriptures. For the Catholic
Church to say that the Pope is in line with Peter and that celibacy
is somehow taught in the Scriptures is just contrary to everything
that the Bible teaches. And Paul's saying, I don't have
a wife, but I've got the right to have one. The other apostles
have wives, the Lord's brethren have wives, and even Peter's
got a wife. Or I only and Barnabas have not
power to forbear working. All the other gospel preachers
don't have to work. They don't have to work with
their hands. Paul was a tent maker by profession
and supported his ministry by his own labor, his own hands. And he's saying, you know, when
God calls a man to preach, that man's to be supported by the
preaching of the gospel. I promise you, it is a full-time
job. It's a full-time job. That's
why I said this is such a blessing to me. And Paul says, you know,
Barnabas and I are having to work in addition to pastoring
and preaching and ministering and carrying the burden of the
churches. And so now he's going to use several examples to support
his position. who go with the warfare at any
time in his own charge who's going to join the military and
pay his own way to defend uh... his country no the people back
at home that he's defending pay taxes to support him who plan
at the vineyard and eateth not the fruit thereof or who feedeth
the flock and eateth not the milk of the flock it is that
this you see he's He's answering their objections with questions.
Now, as I said, I've titled this Undeterred
and I hope that we will all become more undeterred in our commitment
to the gospel because there's going to be opposition, there's
going to be questions, there's going to be unbelief and and problems even
among believers when it comes to the gospel. And say I these things as a man or
say it not the law also. Say I didn't just come up with
this myself. God gave us this in the Old Testament. Look at
the next verse, for it is written in the law of Moses, thou shalt
not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth
God take care of oxen? So God wrote in the law that
when the oxen was treading out the corn that you couldn't muzzle
the ox. So that if he got hungry while he was working, he could
eat what he was treading out. So did God put this in the law
because he was concerned for oxen? No. No, that's not why
God put it in the law. "...or saith it altogether for
our sakes. For our sakes, no doubt, this
is written, that he that ploweth should plow in hope, and he that
thresheth in hope should be partakers of his hope. If we have sown
unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing that we shall
reap your carnal things?" You see, he's saying that the ministry
of the gospel is to be supported by the church. if others be partakers of this
power over you are not we rather there's other men that will come
and insist on you supporting them who don't even preach the
gospel and the same thing's true today you just survey uh... preachers and uh... you will find that that that
the men who are faithful to preach the gospel are doing it on a
lot less than those who aren't. And nevertheless, we have not
used this power but suffer all things lest we should hinder
the gospel of Christ. He said, I'm not making this
argument for me. I'm not asking you for your support.
I'm laying out a principle that is to be carried on in every
gospel church with believers from here on out. Do you not know that they which
minister about holy things live of the things of the temple?
The priest in the temple, God gave it in the law that when
offerings, when meat offerings were made, the priest would take
a portion of that for their own sustenance. And they which wait
at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord
ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the
gospel." The church is to support the gospel. That's what he's
talking about here. And I hope that you'll be encouraged
to support the gospel. uh... with your prayers with
your attendance with your offerings uh... just gave them in this
morning uh... a year in offering uh... report from last year i'd
like for everybody take a copy of it and look at it and pray
about what part the Lord would have you to play in supporting
the gospel ministry. That would be my encouragement
to you this morning. And that report is available.
There's a few left, but we'll make more copies. Verse 15, but I have used none
of these things, neither have I written these things, that
it should be so done unto me. For it were better for me to
die than that any should make my glory in void. I'd rather
die than to give them a reason to accuse me. These accusations they're making
are false. And that's, you know, that's
always the case. If you listen to the opposition
that comes against the gospel, it's always personal. It's never a defense from scripture,
because those who oppose the gospel cannot defend their position
from scripture. And so they resort to making
personal attacks. What are they saying about Paul?
He's just out for himself. No, I'm not. He's abusing you and abusing
his authority. No. He's trying to get you just
to be followers of him. He's developing a cult. The oppositions
are always the same. or they'll say, well you guys
are just too intolerant, you're too narrow, you're unloving. Well, the most loving thing that
we can do, the most loving thing that we can do for anyone is
to tell them the truth. Tell them the truth. And if that
truth is narrow, and it is, then so be it. The Lord said the way
The way to heaven is a very narrow road, and few are they that find
it. The road to destruction is very wide, and many of they that
are on it. The masses want a wide road,
they want an easy road. The gospel preacher has been
called of God, and the church has been called of God to define
the gospel, to declare the gospel, and to not compromise the gospel. And the oppositions that the
Lord allows to come against the gospel are for the sake of purifying
the gospel. They are. They're for the sake
of purifying the gospel. A little leaven leavens the whole
lump. And the Lord's going to, He said,
He said, it's necessary for you that heresies be among you. I've
sent those heresies into your church. in order that those which
are approved of God might be made manifest. So there's going
to be oppositions to the gospel in order that those who are truly
saved and those who are truly called to preach the gospel can
be made manifest. They're going to be identified
by the difference between what they believe and what's being
promoted by the opposition. Verse 16, for though I preach
the gospel. Maybe we should stop here for
just a moment and ask ourselves, what is the gospel? The word gospel means good news.
It's good news to God's people that God sovereignly chose a
people according to His own will and purpose in the covenant of
grace before time ever began. That's good news. I don't want
to hear anything about a gospel where I've got to make a choice.
where I've got to make a decision because I know the choices that
I've made in my life and how poor I've been in making choices
and how fickled I am in the choices that I make. I may decide I want
this now and decide I want something else later. I need a gospel that
has been chosen by God. You did not choose me, I chose
you. That's good news to a sinner. There's no gospel apart from
election. No gospel outside of election. You say, well, you
know, people talk about coming to the doctrines of grace. Well,
I've come to understand the doctrines of election. The gospel that
you were converted under is your gospel. And if you were converted
under a gospel that did not preach the sovereignty of God in electing
a people, then you've got a free will gospel. uh... that is just that you see the
narrowness of it is a way to a preacher you're being too you're
being too mean you're being too intolerant you're being too narrow
you're being too loving no i'm telling you the truth that's
the gospel there's no gospel outside of that i can tell you
how many calvinist i've met over the years who who who who think
that they were uh... converted as armenians and then
became calvinist later uh... it's not possible It's not possible. This is THE gospel. So the gospel is all about a
Savior who satisfied the demands of God's holy law. The law has
been fulfilled. That's good news to me. I don't
want the law to have anything to say to me. I don't want the
law to judge me, because if it does, it's going to find me guilty.
I need a Savior who has satisfied the demands of God's holy law. I need a Savior that was successful
in putting away my sins once and for all by the sacrifice
of himself on Calvary's cross. Not a Savior who makes an offer
of salvation to be made effectual by something I do, but a Savior
who actually accomplished my salvation. That's good news to
a sinner. That's the gospel. There's no
gospel apart from effectual atonement, particular redemption. There's
no gospel apart from the successful atoning work of Christ on Calvary's
cross. There's no gospel. I need a gospel
that takes my will out of the way. I need a gospel whereby
the Spirit of God is irresistible. He cannot be resisted. When he's
ready to make me willing, I'm going to be made willing. And
I can't say no. That's irresistible grace. I
need a gospel where I'm going to be kept from falling and presented
faultless before God. Perseverance of the saints. I've
got to have a spirit that will persevere with me. and cause
me to persevere to the end. A gospel that's in any way dependent
upon me making a contribution to it is not good news to me. Now that's the gospel. And that's what Paul says I came
to preach. And I've not compromised it. We've not changed it. And
it's going to be opposed. But you know what? Regardless
of the opposition, We've set our course and we're going to
be relentless in preaching this gospel because this is what sinners
need and this is the only message that glorifies God. It's the
only message that gives to Christ all the glory and exalts Him
to the place where He is and rightly deserves in our hearts. So that's what Paul's talking
about here. He's saying, you know, these guys have come in and they've
started leavening the gospel. They've started calling into
question some of the things that I'm preaching. And they've started
adding a little here and a little there, taking away here, taking
away there. It will damn your soul. And he
said, I'm not doing it for you. You ought to be supporting me,
is what he's saying. But I'm not asking for your support. Verse 16, For though I preach
the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for necessity is laid
upon me. God called me to this. I don't
have any choice about the matter. And the same thing is true for
every believer. If God's called you by His grace, necessity is
laid upon you. You don't have a choice about
it. Coming to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith is never a choice. It's never a choice. If you have
a choice between Christ and anything else, you will choose something
else. Coming to Christ is when God shuts you up to one One thing. One person. One man. One hope. You've got no place else to go.
And you will say with the disciples, Lord, where shall we go? For thou alone hast the words
of eternal life. We know and are sure that thou
art the Christ, the Son of the living God. We've got no place
else to go. You've shut us up. You've taken away all our options. Now I'll say this again. I've
said it before. I used to say, leave if you can. But I've come
to understand that a little bit clearer. If you can, you will. If you can leave the gospel,
you will leave the gospel. And if I can preach another gospel,
I eventually will. But Paul said necessity is laid
upon me. I don't have a choice about the
matter. God has forced me to believe this and to preach this. What a... Yea, woe is unto me if I preach
not the gospel. You know what that word woe means?
It means to be damned. If I don't preach the gospel,
if you don't believe the gospel, there's only one other option.
That's eternal damnation. So that's awfully narrow. I'm just the messenger. Don't shoot the messenger. Have I not told you exactly what
God says? Alright, let's take a break.