Let's turn in our Bibles to 1
Corinthians chapter 9. 1 Corinthians 9. Our subject is for the gospel's
sake. For the gospel's sake. Paul says
here in verse 19, 1 Corinthians 9.19, For though I be free from all
men, Yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the
more. And unto the Jews I became as
a Jew, that I might gain the Jews. To them that are under
the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under
the law. To them that are without law,
as without law, I became as without law. Being not without law to
God, but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them that are
without law. To the weak became I as weak,
that I might gain the weak. I made all things to all men,
that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel's
sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. Paul, by God's
grace, he didn't know at one time, he didn't know what he
had in Christ. He was under the law, he was
yoked by the law, he was dead in sins and religious as he could
be. Rich in his works and trying
to kill everybody that didn't agree with him. Trying to persecute
everybody that didn't agree. and force them and compel them
and make them to believe the way he believed. And then Christ
arrested him on the road to Damascus and gave him a new heart and
taught him, Paul, I've made you absolutely free. I've made you free. Paul knew
this and this is true of every believer that's brought to Christ
and made to see Christ is all. We're free from the dominion
of sin and from the yoke of old covenant law. Free from the dominion
of sin. Never again will Christ permit
sin to reign over His people so that they fall away in unbelief
and in hatred against God and against the gospel. He won't
allow that to happen. That's not going to dominate
His people. He's going to cause them to believe on Christ and
rest in Christ and love their brethren. Because He has dominion
of the heart now. And we're free from the old covenant
law. Paul said in Romans 7, Sin shall
not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but
under grace. The law will not come and lord
over you and say, and point out your faults anymore. Christ has
fulfilled it perfectly for His people. And all His people are
righteous before the law. The law bears witness that we're
righteous now. The law won't dominate you anymore. You're under grace, not under
the law. We're free from condemnation.
We're free from the law of sin and the law of death. The law
of sin said the soul that sins must die. You must die physical
and spiritually. You must suffer the torments
and condemnation of hell. Paul was made to teach the people
there is therefore now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Them that are
in Christ, there's no condemnation for them. for the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ. I'm under a new law. The law
of the Spirit of life in Christ, the law of life, the law of eternal
life says I can't die, I can't be condemned because Christ is
my life. And that law of life in Christ
has freed me from the law of sin and death. I'm free from
it now. You have eternal life, believer. You're free from that
law. And here he especially means he was free from the yoke and
the bondage of men. Free from the insults of men
and the yokings of men and the ordinances of men and the traditions
of men. Free from that. Free from that. There's very few people, even
among believers I think, there's very few that really understand
this kind of freedom that Paul's talking about. True freedom. True freedom. He was so free
from what men thought and what their opinions were of him, he
wasn't afraid to sit here and word this this way and say, I'm
doing all this that I might save some people. I'm probably not free enough
to make that statement unguarded. I'd probably have to qualify
what I meant by that. Paul was free enough, he said, I'm doing
this to save people, that I might save people. He was free. If the Son shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed. And every true believer
is complete in Christ. That's what it is to be free.
It's to be complete in Christ. To be accepted of God so that
it can never ever be undone or changed or altered in any way.
That's freedom. That's freedom. Freedom from
this world. Freedom... Paul said, the world's
crucified unto me and I unto the world. I'm dead to the world
and the world's dead to me. That's freedom. Now that's freedom. You see these music stars and
all these people that talk about how free they are and yet they
want to dress like the world and act like the world and they
got all these rules and parameters they got to be under to try to
make sure they're accepted. That's not being free, that's
being in bondage. Being free is to be, I'm dead to the world
and the world's dead to me. I'm alive to God in Christ. That's
freedom. That's freedom. So, he knew he
had liberty in Christ. And so, knowing that, Paul made
himself a servant unto all men. Now, why did he do that? Why
did he do that? Verse 19, he says, Though I be
free from all, yet I've made myself servant unto all, that
I might gain the more. You see, Paul had that burden
we saw in the first hour. The Lord chose him and he said,
you're going to be a chosen vessel, you're a chosen vessel unto me
to bear my name to the Gentiles. I'm going to show you what great
things you must suffer for my namesake. And Paul had been given
a heart and a burden for the Lord's people just like the Lord
had. The Lord Jesus said, I didn't
come to call the righteous to repentance, I came to call sinners.
I came to seek and to save that which is lost. And He said, I
must be about my Father's business. He was not lazy. He was not,
He didn't say, well, I got tomorrow, today I'm going to sit here and
I'm going to watch this TV show. No, He was, whatever He was doing,
it was toward that work of seeing His people saved. And that's
the heart He gave Paul, and that's the heart He gives His people.
to see sinners saved. He said there, I made myself
servant unto all that I might gain them more. Down in verse
22, that I might by all means save some. He said in verse 23,
this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be a partaker of
the gospel with you. Now, let me tell you what Paul
was not doing. You know, Back in the 80s, I
was listening to a message the other day, a Brother Henry Mahan
priest, and back in the 80s he was talking about this convention
they had had in Scotland, where John Knox had been the great
reformer who used God to preach the gospel, you know. And he
was talking about this association of churches that had got together
to vote There was all these different sects that had sprung up and
everybody saying Christ wasn't the only way, there's other ways.
We're all going toward the same God, we're just all coming by
different ways, people were saying. And so the church got together
to vote on, is Christ the only way? And you know what they voted? They said, voted no, He's not
the only way. Now that's not what Paul was
saying. Paul wasn't saying what sinners say in this world today.
We're all going in the same direction, we're just all coming from different
directions. And we're all trying to get there
a different way. And you know, the Hindu and the Buddhist and
the Muslim, we all get there, we just all come in a different
way. Christ said, I am the way. Definite article. The way. No man. comes to the Father,
but by me." He's the only way. He's the only way. I have more
respect for a man who's worshiping an idol, a stump, but is dogmatic
that that's the only way. I got more respect for him than
a man who says, well, you got your way and I got my way. That was what Paul was doing.
And Paul wasn't trying to merely create men, make men moral either. He wasn't just trying to create
a society of men that look good on the outside. You can teach
a man morals and teach him how to live morally. And that's like
teaching a blind man how to see. Well, the blind man might go
through the motions. He might look and he might do
everything. He might act surprised and astonished and cry and weep
and all that. And he might convince you that
man can see. But he's still blind as a bat. And you can make a man moral
on the outside, and he can look moral, and he can look like he
is holy, and like he worships God, and like he has a zeal for
God, and still be just as dead and corrupt on the inside, and
unrighteous before God. Paul wasn't trying to do that.
Paul wasn't desiring to make proselytes. He wasn't trying
just to get sinners converted. He said, Christ sent me not to
baptize. He sent me to preach the gospel.
Paul's desire was that men hear the Gospel. He said, I'm doing
this for the Gospel's sake. Everything I'm doing, I'm doing
it for Christ's sake. I'm doing it for His glory. I'm doing it
for His honor. I'm doing it for Him. The mission of Christ's
church is to preach Christ. Number one, to preach Christ
and Him crucified. That's our mission. Our charge
is to go forth and declare to men He's the Son of God. This
One who came down is God in human flesh. He's the Son of God and
the Son of David. He's the Son of God and the Son
of David. The God-man is who He is. And as a man, He's holy,
harmless, undefiled. He's the last Adam. The only
other man that was holy was Adam, and he sinned, and we perished
in him. This man is the last Adam. He's
the holy representative of all God's elect. He said, I came
to lay down my life for the sheep. He didn't come to lay down his
life for all men. He came to lay down his life
for the sheep. He said, I came to lay down my life for the sheep.
And some men came to me and said, how come you keep making us doubt? I always got to blame somebody
else, don't I? How come you keep making us doubt? He said, the
only reason you don't believe me is because you're not my sheep.
You're not my sheep. He came and laid down His life
for the sheep. And He laid down His life. And this is our message.
He came and He took all the sins of all God's elect. God laid
on Him the iniquity of us all. And He bore it. He bore the sins
of His people. He knows what it is to be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. He knows what our sin does and
feels like. He knows it. Was he a sinner? No, he never transgressed against
God. While he bore our sin, he's holy
in his heart, trusting God and righteous. But he's bearing our sin. And
God, because he bore our sin, God charged him with it. And
God poured out wrath on him because of it. In the room instead of
his people. Our message is substitution.
Our message is that by Christ's substitutionary death on Calvary's
cross, all his people had their sins purged. Read Hebrews 1. You get to the third verse and
it says, When he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down
at the right hand of the Father. No high priest ever sat down
in the holy place. Their work was never finished.
They had to come back and offer offerings every year because
the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin. But
this man, after he had made one offering for sin forever, sat
down at the right hand of the Father. Why? Because he perfected
forever them that are sanctified. That's our message. The successful,
triumphant Redeemer. That's who we're to go to men
and preach. When Paul says, I'm doing this for the gospel's sake,
that's the gospel he's talking about. And we declare to men
that there's no possible way that you can make yourself to
be born again, believe on Christ, repent from your sins and your
unbelief and your idols, and rest in Christ. There's no way
you can do that all by yourself. The reason we tell sinners that
is, God's not going to permit a man to have glory, to glory
in anything. We tell sinners that because
Christ said, you go forth and you preach to these dry bones
and you tell them to live. You tell them to live. The only
way you're going to do that is if His Spirit enters into you
and He makes you alive by His Spirit. And that's what Christ
is doing. He's risen now. He's the head of the church.
He's the husband of His bride. He's sending forth His preachers.
He's opening the doors and closing doors and moving this king's
heart and that king's heart and this man's heart and that woman's
heart. And He's bringing His people under the sound of the
gospel and He's successfully making that word effectual in
their heart through the Holy Spirit. And so He said to you
and me, go preach this Word. Go preach this Word. Don't let
anything distract you from this mission and don't you be a distraction
from this one thing, the Gospel. Christ. Man, we want men to see
Christ. Christ, Christ, through the preaching
of this Word. And he said, and not only that,
while you preach it, he said, you prophesy to the wind. Pray
to the Spirit. Preach to the Spirit. Pray to
Him. Preach to the Spirit. Declare
how incompetent you are. Declare how worthless and how
you have no power to make this Word have life. And ask the Lord
to bless it. Ask Him to come forth and give
life in His people. See, while we preach this gospel,
and He uses you to preach this gospel, He's going to make certain
you understand that you are absolutely thoroughly dependent on Him at
the same time. So He says, you pray to Me to
send forth the Spirit and bless the Word. And wait on Me. Wait on Me. Don't get ahead of
God. Don't try to, well, I don't see anything happening, so I
think we need to change our methods and our means and our message,
and that's what's going on today. It's just like what happened
in Moses' day. Moses went up into that mountain. Christ has
gone up into the mountain. And Moses was there a long time. Christ had been there a long
time. And men got tired of waiting. And they said, we don't know
what's become of this man. Aaron, you make us a golden calf. Make us something we can see
so we can play like we worship in God. And that's what's happened
today. Men are tired of waiting on Christ
to make the word effectual. So they said, we can make some
idols. If we can make something men will see, they'll come and
play religion. And so they all rise up and play. We're not to do that. We're to
wait on Him to bless it. He has to give us the grace to
obey Him and to do what He's told us to do. So that was Paul's
desire. He wasn't wanting to just see
men to be made moral. He wanted to see Christ make
men new creations. By His Spirit, by His grace,
by His power alone. He wanted to see God get the
glory. Triune God in Christ. He wanted to see Him glorified.
So, for the sake of that Gospel, for the sake of God, who is our
Gospel, Christ who is our Gospel, for the sake of Him, so that
men would hear the message and not be hindered by Him. Paul,
knowing he had all this liberty, when it came to things that were
indifferent, things that were not to be focused on, he laid
aside his liberty so that he would not be a distraction in
any way for men as he preached the Gospel to them. He wanted
to hear the message that was important to their souls and
not be distracted by anything else. The biggest thing I see
going on in religion today is they're majoring on the minor
and minoring on the major. That's the biggest problem with
it. That's what Paul said. He said, I'm not going to major
on something that's minor. I'm going to lay it aside and
I'm going to major on what's major. That's what he's saying. Look here now at verse 20. He
said, unto the Jews I became as a Jew that I might gain the
Jews, and I'm confident he's still talking about the Jews,
when he says, to them that are under the law, it's under the
law, that I might gain them that are under the law. And some translations
read, the earlier translations read, though not under the law. He says, to them that are under
the law, I became as one under the law, even though I'm not
under the law. Next he goes to say, to them that are without
law, I became without law, even though I'm under the law of Christ.
See? He did this. He did this. Now, this passage is easily misunderstood,
and it has been, and it's been preached in such a wrong fashion. Paul was not pretending to agree
with men when he really did not. He wasn't trying to make men
think, this is what I believe. I'm in agreement with you. He
wasn't trying to fool anybody. That wasn't what he was doing.
He wasn't trying to humor lost sinners in their vain works.
That's not what he was doing. When he was with the Jews, he
wasn't trying to make them feel better than the Gentiles. And
when he was with the Gentiles, he wasn't trying to make them
feel better than the Jews. He wasn't doing anything to put
an emphasis on race or place or anything that would make somebody
think they were better than another. He wasn't doing that. That's
not what he was doing. He means that when it came to
things, indifferent. Indifferent. Things that weren't
critical. Things that weren't necessary
to the salvation of a sinner. He said he made sure they did
not become the focus. He made sure something indifferent
would not distract his hearers from hearing the gospel of Christ
crucified. Now let me give you a couple
of examples. Okay? You turn to Acts 16. While you
turn in there, I'll give you a few things while you turn in
there. You know, at the time that Paul was called, he was
called to minister to the Gentiles. But when he went to cities to
where he was going to preach, there was Jew and Gentile meeting
in the Jewish synagogue in that city. You know where Paul went
to pray? He went to the synagogue. Synagogue
was nothing. He knew now that temple is nothing.
He knew that temple... God can't be contained in a temple
made with hands. He doesn't dwell in a temple
made with hands. He makes the temple he dwells in. He knew
that when he went to that temple. Why? That's where people were
assembled that had an interest in hearing something concerning
the scriptures. You know, he laid aside. He didn't
have to go there, but he did. He went there. He went there. And whatever they did there,
I'm sure he did it there. because he just wasn't going
to. If you go to a place and everybody's
customers stand up at this point and you sit down, well, you're
going to make people go, why is he sitting down? Paul did nothing to make people
look at him and draw attention to him, so that when the opportunity
came that he could stand up and preach Christ, they would just
hear what he had to say. Because if you make men... Men
are already... Their hearts are enmity against
God. They hate God already. And if
you do something to make men start focusing on you, You just
don't. When you start preaching, you
understand how easy it is for sinners to get something totally
different than what you're trying to preach. I can't tell you the
things that folks come up and said to me, and I thought, how
on earth did you get that out of what I said? And it makes
you realize you want to be as plain and as dogmatic and it's
straightforward. I want you to understand what
I'm saying. And these bells and whistles we have. Why I'm so
burdened by that is because you could be thinking I'm having
the greatest liberty in the world and be preaching and thinking
people are with me and they're hearing me and they know what
I'm saying and a mosquito go across the room and everybody
in the room. There went your liberty. But Paul said, I'm not going
to do anything to draw the focus off of where the focus needs
to be. Alright, look here, here's an example. I've heard people
use this and they don't understand it. I've heard believers, true
believers read this and they think, Paul was at fault here.
Paul wasn't at fault here. Look here, watch Acts 16. He
had just come from the Jerusalem council, and they had just determined
there was no point in telling the Gentiles they had to be circumcised.
Don't do that. You don't have to go tell a Gentile
to be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing. It's nothing. We're
not bringing sinners back under the law of Moses. It's nothing.
Now watch this. Verse 1, Then came he to Derbe
and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus,
the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewish. His mother was
Jewish, and Timothy believed. God had made him a new creation.
This man believed the gospel. But his father was a Greek. His
father was a Gentile. Which was well reported of by
the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Everybody knew this.
Him, Timothy, would Paul have to go forth with him. He's going
forth to preach the gospel. He's like, if I took off and
I'm going to make a round down through the south and I said,
here, Ravi, I want you to go with me, Ravi. He's going to take Timothy with
him. Well, everybody where he's going, they all know Timothy
is an uncircumcised Gentile. Half mama was a Jew, daddy was
a Greek. Everybody knows it. It says,
and so he took and he circumcised him. Why? Because of the Jews
which were in those quarters. For they knew all that his father
was a Greek. Nobody told him to. Nobody told
Paul, you better circumcise Timothy or he can't be saved. Nobody
told Timothy if you're not circumcised you can't be saved. Nobody even
knew about this. I guarantee you they didn't take
off on this trip right after Timothy was circumcised. It took
a little while for him to heal and then they went. It was a
while. Nobody knew this scene took place but Paul and Timothy,
only one. So why'd he do it? So that it
wouldn't be an issue when he got to where those Jews were.
It wouldn't become the issue, become the focus of folks looking
and wanting to make an issue out of something that wasn't
an issue. And did God bless it? And as they went through the
cities, they delivered them the decrees for the keep that were
ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem.
And so were the churches established in the faith and increased in
number daily. God blessed it. God blessed it. Well, then on another occasion,
something else happened. Something else happened. Men
came and insisted that Timothy, I mean Titus, that he be circumcised. Turn to Galatians 2. Men came
and they said, remember they came and they said, it's alright
now if these Gentiles are going to believe on Christ. We'll concede
and we'll say salvation is by grace, but now you've got to
go back and keep the law of Moses or you can't be saved. You see,
they were making the sinner's work a necessity in order for
him to be saved. The sinner's law-keeping a necessity
in order for him to be saved. And when they did that, Paul
said, No, sir. No, sir. Look here, Galatians
2, 3. But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was
compelled to be circumcised. And that that compelling came
from false brethren who were, we were unaware they were false
brethren, they were brought in, they came in privately to spy
out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might
bring us into bondage. Now let me show you something.
Those men right there that pretended like they believed the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace, but in truth they really believed
in the will and works of man, these were like These folks who
claim to preach free and sovereign grace, but actually and truly
they're going to take you back to the law to be sanctified. That's who these folks were.
And they came in privately pretending like they believed sovereign
grace. When Paul says, I became as a
Jew, that's not what he was doing. That's not what he was doing. You see, that's just the opposite
of what he was doing. But now when it was with Timothy,
and nobody was compelling him, and he was doing it to keep it
from being a distraction, he said, Timothy, we need to circumcise
you. But when it came to men that came in there, and they
were compelling Titus and saying, if you do not circumcise, you
can't be saved, look what Paul did. Verse 5, to whom we gave
place by subjection, no, not for an hour. Why? for the gospel's sake, that the
truth of the gospel might continue with you." You see, for the sake
of the gospel, he said, Timothy, we need to circumcise you so
men will focus on the gospel in truth and not be focusing
on the works of man. And then when they compelled
Titus to be circumcised, he said, for the sake of the gospel, we
told these men, no. Because otherwise, if we would
have consented to that, the truth would have ceased to have been
preached. We'd have been a promoter of a false doctrine at that point. Because we'd have been agreeing
with men who say that the only way a man can be saved is if
he does something. He said we wouldn't consent to
it. Do you see the difference? You see the difference in that?
So, when he said, I became as a Jew to the Jew, he's not saying,
I preached a different message. He's saying, I preached the gospel
of Christ to them. But I laid aside whatever liberty,
whatever was indifferent and didn't matter. Circumcision avails
nothing and uncircumcision avails nothing. It doesn't matter. And
Paul knew that. He knew that. Knew it to the
point that he could tell Timothy, go ahead and be circumcised just
so they won't make an issue out of it. He knew it. But he knew
it also in the fact that he's not going to allow it to happen
to Titus when men say, you have to have it for salvation. He
knew what matters is a new creation and he knew that new creation
is going to be made by Christ through the preaching of this
word. And so for the sake of that gospel, in both cases, he
said, we're not going to let this be a distraction. You see
that? See that? So that's what he's saying here.
That's what he's saying here. You know what the Jew, when he
went and preached to the Jew, I'm sure, and we know from reading
the Scriptures, the Jews thought that the law, they had to keep
the law for righteousness. So he could go to the Jew, they
knew the law of Moses, and he could declare to them, Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness. The law was bringing us to Christ,
that we might be justified through faith in Him. And then the Jews
thought they were the elect just because they were born of Abraham.
He could preach the election to them because they understood
election really well. And He could say to them more
easily than He could to a Gentile. He could show them in a very
easy fashion. It's not the natural seed that
are the children, it's the seed of promise. It's not everybody's
Israel that's of Israel. Not all these people are true
Israel. It's those who are the elect,
chosen of God. And then when it came to the
law and all the ceremonies, think how... I think Paul wrote Hebrews. I really do. And if you look
there, there's a message to Hebrews. There's a message to the Jews.
What did he do? He showed them. Christ is our
high priest. That's what was being shown in
that law. Christ is our lamb. Christ is our mercy seat. Christ
is our altar. Christ has entered into the true
holiest of holies. And it's by Him now that we have
access and we can enter into God, because He's our high priest.
We don't need a man between us and God. We got Christ the God-man.
He's bringing us to God. You see what I'm saying? It was
easier to preach to them. And He could tell them, and all
that old, He's done away with. It's done away with. And then
look now at verse 21, "...to them that are without law, the
Gentiles, Abba came as without law, being not without law to
God, but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them that are
without law." Proof that he was under the law of Christ is, when
it came to the Gentiles, things that were indifferent, He laid
them aside. That shows you he was under the law of liberty.
He knew that those things were indifferent. So he just laid
them aside. Whatever his rights were, he laid them aside. They
didn't have the old covenant of Moses. Look at Acts 17. He
goes to Athens. Here you got a bunch of superstitious,
idol-worshipping, knowledge-worshipping Greeks. They were loving knowledge.
That's all they were. Acts 17. He wasn't going to go
there and preach the Law of Moses to them. What good would that
have done? They didn't know a thing about the Law of Moses. They
didn't have it. The oracles of God weren't committed to them.
They didn't know a thing about that. So what did He do? He met
them right where they were. And He preached to them right
where they were. Look here, Acts 17, 23. As I
passed by, I beheld your devotions. I found an altar with its inscription,
To the unknown God. You folks are superstitious.
You even got an altar here to an unknown God just in case you
left one out. He said, Whom therefore you ignorantly
worship. Does that sound like a man who's
toning down total depravity? Does that sound like a man who's
changing his message? No. No. But see where he's meeting
them? He's meeting them where they're
at. Where their problem is. He said, Him I declare to you.
I'm going to declare to you who the unknown God is. The God you
don't know. God. God that made the world
and all things therein, seeing that He's Lord of heaven and
earth, He dwells not in temples made with hands. Neither is He
worshipped with men's hands as though He needed anything, seeing
He gives life to all, and breath, and all things. And He is made
of one blood, all nations of men, for to dwell on all the
face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and
the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord,
if happily they might feel after Him. And they might find Him,
though He be not far from every one of us. For in Him we live,
and move, and have our being." And look at this. Look at this.
He even took one of their own poets. He said, when I went to
the Gentiles, I became a Gentile. He takes one of their own poets
and quotes him to support the gospel. Look at this. He said,
as your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring.
Their poets had said that. And he said, see, their own poets
even say it. For as much then as we are the
offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead's like
to gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's device. He's
not an idol. The times of this ignorance God
winked at, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because
He's appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness
by that man whom He hath ordained. whereof he is given assurance
to all men, and that he raised them from the dead." They had
a problem with the resurrection. They laughed at him because of
that, right after that. You know, so you know what he did? He preached
the resurrection to them. They had a problem with Christ.
They didn't know who he was until he preached Christ to them. You
see what I'm saying? He didn't change his message.
He preached the gospel wherever he went. But then, when he was
with the Gentiles, also, if somebody tried to bring the law in to
them, He didn't permit that. He said to Galatia, he sent a whole message, a whole
epistle, saying, we're not under the law. No, sir. And remember
when Peter was there, and he's sitting there eating a big old
barbecue pork sandwich with them Gentiles, and all of a sudden
here comes his Jewish brethren. Peter got up, slipped over there,
and sat down at the table with those Jewish brethren. And Paul
said, I withstood him to the face. I told him, no sir, now
you put an emphasis on race and an emphasis on the law. And he
said, here we are, we've been called by grace and we know that
a man's not justified by the works of the law, he's justified
by the faith of Christ. And so we've believed in Christ
that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, by what
He's done. And he said, so I didn't know, I didn't allow that one
bit. He told Peter this. He said, this is what you're
doing. You're compelling the Gentiles to live as do the Jews.
See, this is the point. His point here is, I didn't compel
anybody. You will make a bad mistake when
you start talking to sinners and they tell you something and
you know right off that's just flat out wrong. You know, it
might be something that they do in their way, they do something
in their service. Maybe they have, maybe at their
Lord's table they have bread that's got leaven in it. And
you know that's wrong. You know that's wrong. Well,
you can start addressing that right away and create this big
fuss to where then when you get up to preach the gospel, they're
not going to hear a word you say. Or you can just get up and preach
Christ, that holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,
unleavened, that saves without any of the leaven of our works.
Just preach Him. And wait on God to give them
a heart to understand it. And then you hadn't compelled
them. If they just changed to using leavened bread because
you compelled them to, you just got them to switch from one false
way to another false way. But if Christ constrains them,
now that's something altogether different. I said, that's what
I'm doing. That's what I'm doing. Look now at verse 22. To the
weak I became as weak that I might gain the weak. That's what he
did up in chapter 8. He said, we're not all brethren
are grown in grace. Some are weak brethren. We know
meat commends us not to God. We're not better if we eat. We're
not worse if we don't. He said, but there's not in every
man that knowledge. And he said, so if my weak brother's
there, I'm not going to eat meat while he's there. That's what
he meant. That's not the major thing. That's not the major thing. The
major thing I'm not going to... If there's a man who thinks he
ought to observe a Sabbath day, or observe a day, I'm not going
to take him to task over that. I'm going to preach Christ to
Sabbath. I'm going to preach Christ our rest, and I'm going
to trust Christ to teach him. He's our rest. He's the one the
Sabbath day typified. He's our rest. See how you get
a man to stop observing a day, and by his stopping to observe
it, it's just one more work like his observing it was. See what
I'm saying? Alright, now verse 22. I made
all things to all men. Now, let me say it again. He
always preached Christ. He always preached Christ. He
did this for Christ. He did it to preach the gospel
of Christ. Look up there, 1 Corinthians 9. Look there. Look at verse 12. He said, talking
about his right, his liberty to be supported, he said, others
are partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? Do we
not have a right to it? Nevertheless, we've not used
this power, but we suffer all things, here's why he did it,
lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ. That's what he's talking
about. So, what he did here when he made himself all things to
all men, he put himself in the shoes of the men to whom he was
preaching. You know, he thought, alright,
there's going to be some Jews in this congregation. If I'm
a Jew, in all my life I've been taught that I'm under the law.
I'll give you an example. If I was going to preach at most
First Baptist churches in this country, most Southern Baptist
churches, all their life they've been taught they were under the
law. I'd go there and I'd think, alright, what's going to be something
that's going to be good for them to show them that Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes? That's
what paused him. I made sure I didn't put the
focus on minor things and I thought about what do they need? What's
going to help them? To those Gentiles there at Athens,
he thought, he looked around and he saw those idols and he
thought, these folks don't need to hear a message on walking
by faith. They need to hear a message about
how we don't worship idols. They need to hear a message about
God's the true and living God. So that's what he preached to
them. That's what he preached. When he was with the Greeks,
they were big on knowledge. And he sat there and told them
all through this epistle to the Corinthians. He has slighted
knowledge. He's told them that knowledge
is nothing. They needed to hear that. And
that's what he's told them. They were big on sports. And right after this, he's going
to use a sports illustration. He's going to use an illustration
of running a race. Because they'll get that. They'll understand
it. A few weeks ago, I was in Iowa. That's farming country.
You know what I did when I preached? I used a bunch of farming illustrations.
They got it. They got it. See what Paul said? I made all things to all men,
to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do
for the Gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you."
Now that's the threefold reason. Listen to it. First of all, number
one, I do it for the Gospel's sake. For Christ's glory. For Christ's glory. The good
news of Christ and Him crucified, I want it to be heard. I want
them to have their mind and focus on Christ and not anything else.
As I'm doing this for the gospel sake. It don't matter about my
rights. It don't matter what I'm entitled
to. Even that grace is given to me.
That don't matter. I'll lay that aside because I
want them to hear Christ. I want them to hear how God chose
His people in Christ. How Christ redeemed all His people
and how the Spirit of God is going to regenerate and bring
all His people into faith in Christ. It's a necessity. I'm
going to preach that. I'm going to do it for the gospel
sake. Here's the second reason. He said there that I might by
all means save some. He did it for the salvation of
sinners. Now Paul knew he was an earthen vessel. He knew he
was just an earthen vessel. He knew the power is not of us,
it's of God. The excellency of the power is
of God, not of us. He knew that. What he's saying
here though is, I'm doing what I'm doing because I want to see
Christ save sinners. That's more important than me
being right about something. about some minor issue, about
something that's totally indifferent to salvation. It's more important
than me being right about it. A great many fights and arguments
and debates go on because somebody's pride, they just want to be right
about something. If you want to be right about
something, be right about the truth of Christ and his gospel
and everything else, you just suffer it because it don't matter. And then He did this, look, that
I might be partaker thereof with you. I want me and you both to
be partakers of the divine nature, because that's where our fellowship
is going to be. If we're both born of the same Spirit and have
the same heart and the same love and the same faith and the same
Savior, we're going to be one. And I want to be a partaker of
that with you. I don't want to put a wedge between us over something
that would make a mountain out of a molehill. I don't want to
do that. I want us to be partakers in
fellowship with one another. John said, that which we've seen
and heard declare we unto you that you also may have fellowship
with us. Fellows in the same ship. And
truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son,
Jesus Christ. That's why Paul did this. I pray
God will do that for us. I want to see Christ honored.
I want to see His people saved. And I want to see Him get the
glory in doing it. And I want to have fellowship
with you. There's some of you sitting here
right now. We've got quite a bit in common, just naturally speaking. But we don't have Christ in common.
Some of us sitting here. And for that reason, we don't
have fellowship. I'd love it if we did, though.
So you know what I'm going to do? I'm not going to humor you,
and I'm not going to preach your will and your works and your
word, and I'm not going to do anything to distract you. I'm
going to preach Christ to you if I've got to lay aside my liberty
to do it. I'm going to do it so that you'll hear Him, because
that's the only way we'll have fellowship. I want Christ to
give me that heart and you that heart. this whole day. I told you this, how the Lord
is able to do this. He is able to give you a message
and He is the one that is going to make His church prevail. He
is going to open every door and do everything. And to show you
that, this bulletin, I put this bulletin together and when I
put this bulletin together, I didn't know what I was preaching today.
I didn't have a clue what I was going to be preaching on. I thought
I was going to be preaching on Psalm 25. I told you Thursday
night I've been working on Psalm 25. I thought that's what I'm
going to be preaching today. I preached a message on how this labor is going to be
brought forth by our Lord in the first message. And then now
the message went right along with it. And you read this bulletin.
Everything in this bulletin goes with it. I didn't know that.
I just look at it. Sometimes I stand back and look
at everything and go, It's a process to get there.
I'm telling you, it is a, whoa, it hurts to get there. But when
you get through, you stand back and say, Lord, thank you. The
Lord did it. And you get up and read a scripture,
it's just right along with what I'm preaching. Sing a song, right
along with what we're preaching. I just think, Lord, thank you.
I'm so glad it's not of our wisdom, it's of His wisdom and His power.