Let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
9. I want to read one verse to begin
with. Verse 19, For though I be free
from all, yet have I made myself servant
unto all, that I might gain the more." There's a difference between
having a head knowledge and a heart knowledge. A person can have
a head knowledge of true doctrine. He can have a head knowledge
of the doctrine of Christ. He can have a head knowledge
of how Christ gives his people liberty. But then there's a thing called
heart knowledge. Whenever God creates His child anew, He gives
a new heart and He writes on that heart a new law. The Lord said, I'll put my law
in their hearts and I'll write it in their inward parts. And
I will be their God and they shall be my people. The law that
God writes on the new heart This is not all of them, but
this is what I want to focus on today. It's the law of liberty
and the law of love. God writes this law in our heart,
the law of liberty and the law of love. What he does by this
is God gives us an entire new constraint, an entirely new motive,
a new way of deciding what we should do. This is what governs
us in every situation. He teaches us what we should
do by this new motive He gives us when He writes the law of
liberty and the law of love on the new heart. It's not in the
letter. We don't go to a letter like
the old covenant law was a letter of laws and you could go there
and look and say, now what does that law say about this situation?
It's not that. We worship God in spirit. This
is a law that teaches you in spirit, so that you're led of
the spirit. And it's only understood spiritually.
The only way it can be understood. Now, in our text today, Paul
continues to teach on this subject. He's teaching on the subject
of the law of liberty and the law of love. And that's what
I'm going to title this, the law of liberty and the law of
love. Now, he has two points. The first point is knowledge.
The second point is love. Now, 1 Corinthians 8, back there
when we looked at that chapter, he wrote this in verse 1. We
know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity
edifieth. Now, the first thing Paul did
in that chapter, and I won't go through the whole thing, but
he focused on knowledge. We know we all have knowledge.
He focused on knowledge. We all know that an idol is nothing.
We have knowledge that we're free from idols. Not all is nothing. We have knowledge that meat doesn't
commend us to God. We're free from any law that
teaches us you should eat this and not eat that. We're free
from that. We have the knowledge of liberty from that. And we
know that there's just one God and we are accepted of Him in
Christ and He's the end of the law. We know this. But see, there's
not in every believer this knowledge. You see, we grow at different
rates. We don't grow all up. We're not
all just come out from their mother's womb and all of a sudden
we're all 50 years old. We have to grow. There's some
that's being born right now that'll grow and it'll be 50 years before
they get to be as old as you that are 50. So I'm saying we
all grow at different rates. So he said, after he focused
on knowledge, he focused on charity, on love. There's not in every
man that same knowledge of liberty in Christ. They don't all have
it. Therefore, our liberty is apt to become a stumbling block
to a weak brother. We're talking about brethren,
believers. When I was first regenerated,
I didn't understand this like I think I see it now. I think
I'm just beginning to see it actually. And I don't think I
saw it when I was first regenerated. Our liberty will become a stumbling
block to a weak believer. Now, if all a man has is knowledge
of liberty, knowledge of his rights, that's what we're talking
about when we talk about liberty, my right, my power, my authority,
my rights, my liberties. If all a man has is knowledge
of his liberty, but he doesn't have charity, in other words,
his heart's not been made new, he's not had the law of liberty
and love written on his heart, or even if he's a baby in Christ. and he doesn't understand this,
he's apt to say to his weak brother, you're going to be offended if
I eat this. Well, that's just tough. This is my liberty. I'm
going to eat it anyway. And really and truly, if you
don't understand liberty like I understand it, you're probably
not even a believer. See, that's being puffed up by knowledge. That's knowledge of liberty that
just puffs up. I don't want that. I don't want
that for me. I don't want that for you. I
want you to have the law of liberty written on your heart with the
law of love together. Knowledge of liberty with love
says this, if meat makes my brother offended, then I won't eat while
the world stands. I won't eat and make my brother
to offend. I won't do that. I'll lay aside
my liberty. It's my liberty, but I'm going
to lay it aside for the sake of him. What made him do that? He's got a new motive. What's
going to glorify Christ? What's going to be best for my
brethren? You see, that spirit, that rule will apply in any situation
you come into. If you come into a situation,
and you might come into a situation, you can't find it in the old
covenant law. You ever come into a situation where you just couldn't
find the answer in the scriptures? He didn't spell it out in the
letter what you should do. But see, if you have this rule
in your heart, this applies to any situation we come into. See
how much better this rule is than having the letter of the
law? This is worshiping God in spirit. So now in our text, Paul
does the same thing. He divides his teaching between
knowledge and liberty. Between knowledge and liberty.
Now, let me say this first. I want you to get this now. Paul
is not writing this to them. to try to guilt them into giving
him a salary. That's not what he's doing at
Korah. He's showing them a point, an illustration of how it's better
to have the law of liberty and love written on the heart so
that you will lay aside your liberty for the sake of Christ's
glory and the good of your brethren. You see, that's what the believer
will do that's had this written on his heart and has been grown
in grace to understand this. That's what he'll do. Whereas
that man that just has knowledge of liberty will be haughty and
insist on having his way regardless if it hurts his brethren or if
it hinders the gospel. He won't realize that's what
he's doing. Alright, now first of all, I want to look at knowledge
and then we'll look at liberty. Alright, let's look at this together.
Now, Paul had knowledge of his liberty. This was his right,
this was his power. Later in the text it's called
power. He's talking about liberty, his right. He had a right to
be supported by the church at Corinth, by everybody he preached
to, whether it was Corinth or not. And other believers that
were grown in grace, they had a knowledge of this liberty at
Corinth. They understood what Paul was saying here. But now
Paul asked a number of rhetorical questions. You know what a rhetorical
question is? You don't even have to answer that. It's just obvious.
And what Paul's showing by this is a man can have knowledge of
liberty and yet not have it in his heart. He is showing us the
difference between a head knowledge and a heart knowledge. He is
going to show us here by several different laws. Some are just
laws in nature, some are laws in the Bible. But He is going
to show us by several laws, several principles that this was right,
this was His liberty to be supported financially by the church at
Corinth. But now stay with me because I want you to see the
point that He is making. First of all, We all have knowledge
of this liberty, that a preacher should be supported. We have
knowledge of that by nature. You know this is true and right
by nature. We know it's true by common practice.
We do it every day. Watch this. Verse 7. Who goeth to warfare at any time
at his own charges? Who plants a vineyard and eats
not of the fruit thereof? Or who feeds a flock and eats
not the milk of the flock? Everybody here knows that those
who work for another's good They have a liberty they have a right
in return to receive a payment from those they provided for
We all know that you know that I've got that knowledge. You've
got that knowledge a Nation gives back pay gives pay to the soldier
who goes and fights for the nation. He's benefiting the nation We're
going to pay him. We're going to support him The farmer who
puts a seed in the ground, the ground gives him back fruit for
his labor. The shepherd who milks the sheep,
he tends to the sheep, feeds the flock, those sheep give him
milk in return for his labor. Nature teaches us this is right.
We all have knowledge. Well, we also have this knowledge
because it's declared in the old covenant law of Moses. Look
at verse 8. Say I these things as a man,
Well, yes, it's natural, we see it's natural, but now he's going
to move on to the Scriptures. Saith not the law the same thing
also? For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not
muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn. You see
how cruel that would be? This ox is working out there,
laboring hard, and he's working for you to have corn for you
to eat, and you're going to muzzle his mouth? You're so stingy,
you're going to muzzle his mouth so that he can't even get any
corn while he's working? Doth God take care for oxen,
or saith He altogether for our sakes? What was that law teaching
us? It was for our sakes, no doubt,
that this was written. So a natural man, you could read
that law right there, and you sitting here right now that haven't
been regenerated by God, that don't believe God, you could
read that about the ox, and you get it, you understand it, don't
you? You got the knowledge now that this is right. But you haven't
been born of God yet, but you got the knowledge of liberty.
He got the knowledge of liberty. He that plows should plow in
hope. He ought to have some expectation that he's going to get something
in return. And he that threshes in hope should partake of his
hope. Not only should he do it in hope, he ought to partake
of the hope at the end. Everybody knows that. You know that. I
know that. We have knowledge of this liberty.
Well, we have knowledge of this liberty by the law of profitability,
the law of reciprocation. Look here in verse 11. If we've
sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall
reap your carnal things? If somebody benefits us with
something that's of great value, is it a great thing if we, in
turn, give them something that's lesser value? Is it a great thing? No. You take a doctor who's done
some medicine or something and saved your life. We're going
to complain about what we've got to pay that doctor? Whatever
you pay, I guarantee it's not as much as your life's worth.
Well, Peter said that what we're sowing as preachers is the incorruptible
seed. This is the word whereby the
gospel is preached unto you. And through that sowing of that
seed, Christ comes forth and He gives new life in a sinner.
He gives new life. He creates a new nature there.
He brings you to put all your trust in Christ, blessing you
with the unsearchable riches of Christ. He gives you eternal
life. He gives you free justification. He gives you free righteousness.
He gives you a holiness with Christ dwelling in you. He gives
you redemption from the curse of the law. He gives you liberty.
He gives you an eternal inheritance that will not fade away, that's
reserved in heaven for you. He gives you eternal life. What
kind of price can you put on that? So Paul says here, if we've
sown unto you something of such spiritual value, such treasure
as the bread that never perishes, is it a great thing for us to
reap from you bread that will perish? That's not anything. Now you know that, and I know
that, don't you? Common sense knows that. Well,
we have knowledge of this liberty from the law of equity. Look
here in verse 12. If others be a partaker of this
power, this liberty, this right, over you, or not we rather, the
law of equity, doesn't it teach you that if one worker is being
paid, the other worker doing the same labor, he ought to be
paid too. I'm going to pay one, but I'm
not going to pay the other one. See what I'm saying? That's what
he's saying. There's some other preachers preaching to you that you're
supporting, but not us. You see, the law of equity says
that's not right. It's right to pay all men. Now look here. So we have this
knowledge. Then we have this knowledge of
a preacher's liberty by reading the law of the Levitical priesthood.
Look at verse 13. Do you not know that they which
minister about holy things live of the things of the temple?
And they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar."
If you just take a casual reading of the temple worship under the
Old Covenant, you'll see, just without being born in the Spirit
of God, you can see there that God provided for His priests. He did it by requiring that everybody
that brought the offerings there, the sacrifices there, that those
priests get a part of those sacrifices. Everything that was offered on
that altar, they get a part of it. And that way they don't have
to be working. They can spend all their time
in the temple praying and offering those sacrifices for the people. God ordained that. You can just
read that and you can say, yeah, I see that. That gives me some
knowledge that this is right. I understand that's right. And
then finally, now this is most important here, Paul had knowledge
of his liberty by the ordination of Christ himself. Look here
in verse 14, Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which
preach the gospel should live of the gospel. Now, again, you're
sitting here that don't have the Spirit of God in you, you
read that, you see, okay, obviously the Lord ordained that, so the
preacher should be supported. You've got that knowledge. Well,
every believer has this knowledge. Everyone born of the Spirit has
this knowledge of all these things. Some have it more. We have it
more. We've been grown a little more
so we understand that this is true liberty. We have liberty.
Now here's the point. Paul said back up there in 1
Corinthians 8, we know we all have knowledge. If you have knowledge
of liberty, Even knowledge of true grace, a little bit of knowledge
of what Christ has done and set His people free. Everybody talks
about grace. Everybody talks about liberty.
Everybody talks about Christ making you free. Everybody talks
about that. Everybody's got knowledge of
this. But if you just have knowledge of liberty, knowledge puffs up. Knowledge puffs up. You see,
he showed us here in all these rhetorical questions, everybody's
got knowledge of this liberty. But if all a man has got is knowledge
of liberty, that man will be lifted up in pride. You know
what he'll do? He'll insist that his liberty be honored. He'll
insist that he be given his rights. We see this in the world every
day right now. We're living in the most entitled generation
there's ever been. Everybody, we've got our rights.
And I'm going to have my right no matter if I have to step on
you to get it. Well, that's the heart of a natural man. That's
the heart of natural religion too. A man can have knowledge
of liberty. And the preacher that claims
he's preaching the glory of God and the salvation of God and
salvation by grace and all that, he can have knowledge of liberty.
But you know what he'll do? He'll take them back to the law
and he'll use all these laws. He'll use these laws to guilt
them. He'll use these laws to yoke them. He'll use these laws
to say, now you must honor my liberty. If he doesn't do it
with this particular illustration from the aspect of financial
support, he'll do it from some other. But he'll say, now I'm
taking you to the law and I'm going to make, you're going to
do this. You're going to honor this liberty. You see, he'll
even use the law of Moses, but he'll even use the ordination
of Christ to do it. We're so dead by nature, we will
turn liberty into law. I'm telling you. Without a new heart, without
God writing the law of liberty and the law of love on the heart,
and teaching a man and growing a man, knowledge of liberty will
just puff him up. It will just puff him up. This
is what you see in free will works religion around us, even
amongst those who claim to preach free and sovereign grace. Taking
men back to the law. Yoking them with the law. Tell
them, you better honor these liberties. You better honor these
liberties. Now, secondly, let's focus on
the law of love, charity. See, we can all have knowledge.
Now, what does the law of liberty written on the heart, together
with the law of love, what's that going to do? Look at verse
15. Paul said, but I have used none
of these things. You see, all these laws he just
gave, they're laws, that's what they are, they're principles.
All of those were rules that showed this was Paul's right.
Paul said, I've used none of those laws. Not used one of them. Not one of them. He said, I'm
not writing this now to you, for you to give me anything.
That's not why, he's teaching them something about law and
liberty. About the law of liberty and the law of love. That man
who doesn't have it, doesn't have the love written on his
heart, he'll turn back and use those things. He'll turn back
and use those laws. But Paul didn't do that. Paul
had more than knowledge. God had written the law of liberty
on his heart. He knew he had liberty. But he
had something else. He had the law of love written
on his heart. What's the law of love? I keep talking about
that. What is it? Well, it's also called the law of Christ.
Turn over to Galatians 6. You see, you have the law written
on your heart by nature. The Ten Commandments, Romans
2, that's on your heart by nature. A Gentile, Paul said, that steals
another man's chicken, he knows that's wrong. He knows he shouldn't
have stolen. You know that by nature. This that God writes
on the heart is something here that you can't get unless God
writes it on the heart. God has to put love in you, spiritual
love in you. Look here now. Here it is, here's
this law of love, Galatians 6.1. Brethren, if a man be overtaken
in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit
of meekness, trusting Christ to teach him, trusting Christ to constrain
him. And do it considering yourself, considering how Christ took the
burden off you. Lest thou also be tempted, lest
you be tempted to put a heavy yoke of law on that stumbling,
burdened down brother of yours. He says, bear ye one another's
burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. You see that? That's the law of love. That's
what Paul was doing for them. He laid aside his liberty and
he was bearing the burden of those weak brethren They didn't
understand. He detected something at Corinth
that made him say, I don't need these people to support me because
this is going to be a hindrance. And so he laid it aside, laid
aside his liberty, and he bore the burden of those that were,
were they doing wrong by not supporting? Yeah. Were those
doing wrong that were accusing him of filthy lucre? Yeah. But
he bore it so that he could sit there and preach Christ to them.
How's that the law of Christ? Well, when Christ walked this
earth in John 13, 34, He said, A new commandment I give you.
A commandment's a law. We're under the law of Christ.
You understand that? We're not under the law of Moses,
we're under the law of Christ. And what I'm trying to teach
you today is what it is to be under the law of Christ. To have
the law of liberty and the law of love written on your heart.
It's nothing like the law of Moses. It's nothing like the
letter of the law. A new commandment I give to you,
that you love one another." Now here you go, listen. How? As I have loved you, you also
love one another. And then He showed us a picture
of it in another place. You remember the night after
they ate and that Lord, He bowed Himself down, He took His robe
off, He bowed Himself down before them, He washed their feet, And then he rose up again and
put his robe back on and he said, now, he said, I, your Lord and
your Master, have washed your feet, so you ought also to wash
one another's feet. I've given you an example you
should follow. We had no liberty. We had no liberty. We had no
freedom. We were slaves to sin. We were dead in sin and we had
no liberty. whatsoever. No freedom, no right
to anything but hell. That's all we had a right to.
Christ, the Son of God, had all liberty. He had all right as
God. He had all right to be honored
and glorified and praised and worshiped from us. He had all
right to be honored by us. What'd He do? What'd He do? He thought it not robbery to
be equal with God. But he made himself of no reputation. He laid aside his liberty. He
laid aside his liberty. Why? Out of love for those the
Father chose and gave him in the covenant of grace. He loved
his own. So he laid aside his liberty.
And He took upon Him the form of a servant. That's what He
was picturing when He took off that robe. He had an undergarment
on. He wasn't naked before. But He took that outer robe off.
That was a symbol, a picture there of Him veiling His glory
and coming down as just a man, taking human flesh as just a
man. And He washed us. All His people were in Him, and
He washed us by being obedient to the Father, even unto the
death of the cross. He went to that cross and laid
down His life, and God took the sin of His people and laid the
iniquity of us all on Him. And you're talking about laying
aside your right now. You're talking about laying aside
your liberty now. God saw Him as the guilty one. and turned
His back on him in justice. That's how much He laid aside
His liberty. That's how much He loved His
own. He gave Himself for us. And because He did that, He highly
exalted God the Father. He declared God just and the
justifier of His people. He manifests all the glorious
attributes of God. His holiness, His righteousness,
His love, His kindness, His long-suffering, everything is manifest in Christ.
He highly exalted God by what He did on that cross. Now, do
you want to highly exalt God? Do you want to highly exalt Christ
who saved us? He says, now you love your brethren
just like I've loved you. Christ didn't put a heavy burden
on us. He didn't come and lay that law on us and charge us
with our sin and pour out the wrath of God on us. He didn't
put that burden on us. He said, put all that burden
on Me. He took the burden of the law on Himself. He took the
burden of our sin on Himself. And He even took the burden of
the wrath of God on Himself. Until He satisfied every bit
of it for His people. And then He came to us and He
did like Paul did. When Paul came there, yeah, Paul
showed them these laws. He showed them that he had the
liberty for this, didn't he? Christ came and He showed us
what the law said of us. He showed us the law demands
perfection. The law demands holiness and
righteousness. That's what God's right is. He showed us that. But He didn't
teach us that law to lay that law on us and lay that burden
on us and guilt us into trying to serve God because of the law.
That's what men do that just have a knowledge of liberty.
Christ loved His own and with all His rights, He come and showed
us this and then He showed us what He had done for us. How
He took that whole burden off of us. And that's what melted
my heart and your heart. It wasn't the law. It wasn't
Him binding us and constraining us with the law, it was this
grace that melted our heart and made us bow in submission and
cast all our care on Him. And that's what Paul's doing
here. You want to highly exalt God? The way you highly exalt
God is, yeah, it might be your right. It might be your liberty. What's going to be best to glorify
Christ and good for your brethren? Lay aside your liberty for that. Lay aside your liberty for that.
That was Paul's motive. Let me show you. Look here in
our text. This was the motive of his heart. This is the motive
of the heart that has the law of liberty and the law of love.
Look at verse 12 at the end. We suffer all things lest we
should hinder the gospel of Christ. What does that mean? Lest we
should hinder the gospel of Christ? What is the gospel of Christ?
The gospel of Christ is how Christ gets all the glory, and it's
how He saves His people. That's how. That's what it declares,
and that's the means it's used, and everything about the gospel
of Christ gives Christ all the glory, and that's how He saves
His people. And what Paul is saying here is, I didn't want
to get in the way. I detected something here that
if I took some financial remuneration from you, there's going to be
a problem here, and you're not going to be able to hear me when
I'm preaching Christ. And the only way that Christ is going
to get all the glory to Himself is through this Gospel. And the
only way He's going to save perishing sinners is through this Word.
And so, for His glory and the good of my brethren, as my one
and only motive, I laid aside my liberty and just preached Christ to you.
Because I didn't want to do anything to hinder this Gospel. Nothing
to hinder this Gospel. And Paul, he did this, and so
the church, some carnal reason would say, well then, you know,
Paul, he's going to do without. Man, that's going to do without. No, not when Christ teaches His
people through that gospel. So what was Paul's wage? What
was his reward? What was his reaping? What made
him do this? What made him go through with
this with no financial reward? What made him do that? Look at
verse 15. He said, I've not written these
things that it should be done to me, for it were better for
me to die. Uh-oh, this is going to be serious
business, whatever this is. When a man says it would be better
for me to die, than this to happen. This is serious. Watch. Better
for me to die than that any man should make my glorying void. You know what that word glorying
means? Rejoicing. Rejoicing. Better for me to die than a man
make my rejoicing void. What Paul said there when he
says better for me to die, he's better for me to be so destitute
of your financial support that I just flat out starve to death.
It'd be better for me to do that. Die a slow, agonizing death of
starvation than it would for you to take my glory from me,
my rejoicing, my joy." Well, what was it? Well, I'm going
to simplify the next few verses. I'm not going to read them. But
he said it wasn't just simply preaching the gospel. He had
a stewardship from God to preach the gospel. And he was just doing
what he was sent to do, what it was his calling to do. He
was just obeying his master, you know. He didn't deserve,
there wasn't anything that he deserved for that. I mean, he
was sent to do that. But look down now at verse 18.
What's my reward then? Verily, that when I preach the
gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that
I abuse not my power, my liberty in the gospel. He said, that's
my pay. That's my pay. Paul rejoiced
that all he had to do was preach Christ. That was his rejoicing. That's all he had to do. He didn't
have to abuse his liberty. He didn't have to take those
laws and say, now, don't you feel guilty that you're not paying
me? He didn't do any of that to guilt and constrain his people
with fleshly constraints. He rejoiced that all he had to
do was preach Christ. That's it. He rejoiced because
through that message, without Paul's constraining power, Paul
saw Christ saving sinners. He sat there for 18 months at
Corinth and the Lord saved a bunch of folks. And he did that through
one message, just preaching the total depravity of every sinner
and declaring this is why Christ must do everything from beginning
to end. This is why God chose his son,
why God sent his son, why he's the only righteousness and holiness
and redemption of his people, why he's the wisdom of his people,
why he's going to get all the glory and salvation. It's because
you and I can't do a thing to save ourselves. So all he did
was preach this message. And Christ saved His people.
And gave them a new heart, and wrote the law of liberty on their
heart, and the law of love on their heart, and made them love
Christ and love one another. Without Paul doing one thing,
but preaching Christ. You see, obedience to Christ
is its own reward. You hear men talking about, you
know, well, you do this and that on this earth and you're going
to get a reward in heaven. No. When you've done what you
ought to do, just say, I've just done what I should have done.
I don't deserve anything else. I did what Christ sent me to
do. But even besides that, when you
get to glory, we're going to have Christ. There will be nothing
better. I don't care. There won't be
anything better. He will be the reward. Scripture
says He is the portion of His people, and His people are His
portion. That'll be the reward. But when
we're here serving Him now, you know what the reward is? The
reward, we have it presently. The reward is obeying Christ. I'm thankful. I rejoice that
He's given me a heart to obey Him and just to cast my care
on Him and trust Him for all salvation. Don't you rejoice
in that? I have no greater rejoicing than to know that Christ is going
to save me. I've obeyed Him. No, you didn't
say that, Clay. Yeah, I said it. I've obeyed
him. How? He irresistibly drew me to him
and made me willing to trust him alone for my salvation. And
that's all my joy. And something else, when He puts
you together with His people and He gives you a heart to love
your brethren and to bear their burdens and to wait on Christ
to teach your brethren in the heart and do this affectionately
without your constraint and your whipping and all that. When He
gives you a heart to do that and obey Him and you see Him
doing it, that's great rejoicing. Obedience to Christ is its own
reward. I don't need another reward than
to see Christ glorified and my brethren saved. What a reward! What a joy! And it'd be better
for me to starve to death than for some man to make that glorying
void. Can't you say that? I'd rather
die than to take that joy away. If you want to be happy, You
want to be happy? Obey Christ. Well, how do I do
that, preacher? Bear witness of Him in the spirit
of meekness? You know what the spirit of meekness
is? It doesn't mean you necessarily are bowed down to men and groveling
to men, although you want to be nice to men. Don't be a horse's
rear when you're talking to somebody. But what meekness is, is bowing
to Christ and trusting Christ is the only one that can teach
you. That's meekness of spirit. He's the only one that can do
this. I have to just wait on Him. I might have to wait a long
time. I might have to bear the burden
of my sin-sick brother for a long time. But I'll just bear it. Better for me to bear it than
to hinder this gospel. Getting away. I don't want to
get in the way. Sometimes you call me and say, you know, this
problem's going on, this sister, this brother's having this problem,
this trouble, and you know, what should you do? What should I
do? Don't get in Christ's way. That's the first thing I tell
you. Don't you try to fix it because you're going to get in
Christ's way. You stay out of the way. Remind them what Christ
has done. And bear the burden. That means
just put up with it. Whatever it is that may be getting
under your skin and may just be off of you. If you've got
to go in a room somewhere, in a padded room and shut the door
and run into the walls and scream at the top of your lungs just
to get it out, get it out. But don't do it around them.
Wait on Christ to teach them. And I promise you, you will have
joy. Even if Christ doesn't save anybody through your witnessing,
you'll have joy knowing this, I did what the Lord told me to
do. We'll use another natural principle.
In natural principles, when you know you've done wrong, and we
all know when we've done wrong, do you have joy then? Or do you
have joy when you know? I'm not in some blazing sin,
great brazen sin against the Lord right now. I have more joy. I have no joy at all when I'm
disobeying God. Well, this is true too. See,
this is our motive. What gives Christ the glory?
What's good for the brethren? That's our rule. That's the rule
of the law of liberty and the law of love written on the heart.
And that's different from just having it in the head. It's having
it in the heart. Now remember that. Every brother
and sister doesn't have this knowledge. Not every brother
and sister is grown yet to understand this. There'll be somebody who
hears this message and I guarantee you they'll say, Clay started
preaching works. Some of my brethren that believe
the gospel and know what I preach, they probably say, oh Clay, it's
Clay's turn to start preaching words. If they say that to me,
you know what I'll know? I'll just wait on Christ to grow
them, because that's what's needed. You see what I'm saying? I pray
God will bless you.