First Corinthians 9. We ended
last week with verse 16. And I ended there believing that
I would bring a message from that verse alone. And Lord willing,
that's what we'll do for the message this morning. All right?
That verse alone. But in this chapter, Paul began
by reminding us, first of all, that he speaks as an apostle. That's how he started this. He
is writing the actual word of God Almighty. That's what it
means that he is an apostle. And then he went into the fact
that God has ordained those who have been called to preach the
gospel. This was about the support of
the ministry. And he said, God has ordained
those that have been called to preach the gospel to be totally
committed to the ministry. That's what he has ordained.
Whoever he has given this task of studying and delivering his
word, his purpose is that they might be totally committed to
the ministry, 100%. And because of that, there is
a need for them to be supported by the ones they minister to.
Verse 14 says, Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which
preach the gospel should live of the gospel. Paul, he would
not take any money from the church at Corinth. He obviously did
from others, he had to. But he wouldn't take any money
from the church in Corinth so that it would be proven to them
while he tells them these things. It would be proven to them that
he was speaking on behalf of God Almighty and not on behalf
of himself. He did not tell them, God has
called you to support the minister. Now where is my money? He said,
I'm not taking a dime, not taking a dime. And he wanted them to
know that it is their calling. It's a preacher's calling to
give himself to the ministry. And it's all of our calling,
me included, to support the ministry the Lord has given us. And verse
15, he said, I have used none of these things, none of their
things. Neither have I written these
things that it should be so done unto me. For it were better for
me to die. It'd just be better for me to
die than to stand up here and start talking about money. Then
that any man should make my glorying void. For though I preach the
gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for necessity is laid upon
me. Yea, woe is unto me if I preach
not the gospel. I must do this. I must do this. Support or no support, I must
do this. Support is not the minister of
the gospel's concern. I am so glad. Support is not
the minister of the gospel's concern. I love that. I don't have anything to do with
the money here. I'm the only one who cannot go charge anything
at Home Depot. I don't want to. I want it to
be that way. I'm the only one, well, I'm not
the only one, but on purpose, I cannot write a check out of
the church's account. I don't want to touch it. I don't
want to have anything to do with it. Support is not the minister of
the gospel's concern. His concern is preaching the
gospel. That's it. I mean, that's it. One thing. That is it. is preaching the
gospel. If God is in it, if God is doing it, God will
support it. He just will. That has been proven
to us over and over again. Over and over again. I mean,
I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing this be proven to this congregation
over and over again. Starting with me, I came here
preaching the word, saying the Lord will provide, hoping, I
hope the Lord will provide. And He has. Buddy, He has. Look at verse 19. It says, for though I be free
from all. The word man is in italics. He
said, I'm free from all. Paul was, he was a man, you talk
about a man under the law. You talk about a man under ceremonies
and rituals and all those kinds of things. Paul said, I've been
made free from every bit of it. Every bit of it, all that the
law demanded, I've been made free. But he is also saying,
I'm free from all men too. I'm free. And what he means by
that is, I'm not beholden to, I'm not reliant upon any man
or woman for support. What he's saying is, God supports
me. And I tell you this, God supports
you. He supports you. Somebody could say, now Paul,
you might want to compromise your message. You're starting
to offend this one over here. I think you're going to lose
his support. Paul said, I'm free from that.
I'm totally free from that. God supports me. And that ought
to also give all of us a lot of comfort as supporters. I say
it again, I'm a supporter too. I want to be a supporter too.
I'm required to be a supporter just like the rest of us, part
of this body. And that gives us all a great deal of comfort. If God puts us in the position
where we can no longer be large supporters of the gospel. If
he enables me to, may he give me a heart to support his ministry.
But if he puts me in the position to where I can no longer be a
large supporter of the gospel, it's okay. It's fine. It's fine. God's ministry is
not reliant on any one of us. any one of us, God's ministry
will remain as strong and as stable as he purposes for it
to remain. If God is in it, if God is doing
it, God will support it. He will support it. I get to
see confirmation of this all the time. all the time. I mean all the time. Some of the times I tell you
about and I'm about to tell you about another one because it's
such a blessing. It is such a blessing. We had a conference last September
and a conference is our motivation to jump back on the building
and do stuff, right? And we do what we can until the
conference and then we So a lot of you lovingly offered to handle
things. I'll take care of this. Great.
It's stuff we talked about for, you know, two months beforehand,
leading up to it. That would be perfect. Go. You
know, and this one's like, I'll take care of that. Perfect. Great.
Go. All right. Well, conference time came, and
all those things started getting done. And for a lot of them,
those of you who went out and bought things, you'd just go
buy them and bring a receipt to Brother Tony and he would
reimburse you out of the church's account. And all that came in
at the conference. All right, now we have, before
the conference, we have a Wednesday night, we don't have a service
the Wednesday night before, so we all come here and we do a
final spruce up, a final cleanup, and we get it ready. One of the
things we were gonna buy that Wednesday night was more mulch.
We bought some, we needed more. Somebody was gonna go pick it
up. Brother Tony came to me that Wednesday night and he said,
we might wanna hold off on buying any more mulch. I said, okay. He said, The receipts started
coming in, and I started writing checks. And he said, I balanced
the checkbook, and he said, we have about $200. And I thought, what? This is Wednesday
night. Friday morning, I have two pastors
that are going to show up at my door. We try to be as generous
as we can with them. It's on the bulletin board. We
paid them each $500. That's $1,000. We rented the Renaissance Center
for Friday night. and Sunday afternoon, which was,
I don't know, $250, $300. We bought pizza for the whole
conference Friday night, which I don't know how much that was,
$200, $250. We bought chicken or whatever for Sunday. We hired
some nursery workers to watch the nursery so all our ladies
could enjoy the conference. We can start doing the math,
okay? So I was standing right out there,
leaning on a shovel, talking to one of you men about this,
spreading what mulch we had. We didn't go buy any more mulch.
And the only thing we could come to was, the Lord will provide. That's all you can say. The Lord
will provide. So, all right, we'll see y'all
later. Thanks for your help. I went up to lock the front door.
In my habit, every time, I do it every time. Even though if
I come back from lunch and I know I just checked the mail, I do
it every time. I check the mail. One letter in there. Pulled it
out from a dear man and his dear wife from hundreds of miles away. Opened it up and it was a check
for $2,000. And I saw that and I thought, Jehovah
Jireh. The Lord will provide. And here's the great part about
it. It was back date. The date was old and they put
a sticky note. They wrote a letter but also
put a sticky note. Sorry, it's six weeks old. They said I wrote
it and set it in a stack of mail and lost it and forgot about
it. And just found it and sent it. Now do you know why she lost
that letter in the mail for six weeks? We didn't need it six
weeks ago. We needed it today. That's a blessing. I see it all
the time. All the time. Jehovah Jireh. So support is truly not a gospel
preacher's concern. Oh, the account's getting low.
Just preach the gospel. Just preach the gospel. All he
needs to be worried about is the gospel message itself. Preach the gospel. Now, look
what Paul says in verse 17, 1 Corinthians 9 verse 17. For if I do this thing willingly,
preaching the gospel, if I do this thing willingly, I have
a reward. But if against my will a dispensation
of the gospel is committed unto me, the word dispensation means
a stewardship, a management, an overseeing. If I do this thing willingly,
I have a reward, but if against my will, a stewardship, a management,
an overseeing of the gospel is committed unto me. Now I'm going
to read to you what one of the commentators said because I just
can't say it any better. This is great. He said, if I
preach this gospel and endure the trials and labor in the word
with a willing spirit and a cheerful heart, I have great satisfaction
and compensation. But if I do so reluctantly and
under compulsion, which means if I'm forced to do it, if I
do this reluctantly and under compulsion, I am still a servant
of Christ, entrusted with a sacred and holy commission, Whether
with pay or without pay, whether willingly or reluctantly, none
of these things change the fact that I am a servant of Christ
with divine orders to preach the word." What he's saying is,
suck it up. That's what he's saying. Paul
said, Timothy, preach that word. You don't worry about anything
else. Preach, he said, it doesn't matter whether it's in season
or out of season. Preach the word. Preach that
word. Don't be concerned about anything
else. Just preach the word. Go over
to Philippians 1 with me. Philippians 1 verse 15, Paul writes, Some indeed preach
Christ, even of envy and strife, some also of goodwill. The one
preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add
affliction to my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I'm
set for the defense of the gospel. What then? Notwithstanding every
way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and
I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." No matter what,
the gospel must be preached. It just must be preached, no
matter what. But he said back in 1 Corinthians 9, go back over
to 1 Corinthians 9, verse 7. 17, 1 Corinthians 9 verse 17, he said,
if I do this thing willingly, if I do this happily, obediently,
I have a reward. I have a reward. Verse 18, what
is 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 in the gospel. That's my reward. That's my reward,
and what a reward that is. What a reward that is. It means
two things. It means two things. First of
all, I tell you this, my greatest fear as a pastor, my greatest
fear as a pastor is that my flesh will bring reproach on my God,
on his word, and on his people. That's my own greatest fear. Is that this flesh, right, this
wicked, sinful, awful flesh will bring reproach on my God, on
his word, and on his people. That's my greatest fear. If the
Lord would keep me from bringing shame to him, his message, and
his people, what a reward that would be. If I could get to the
end of the ministry, and it could be said, that man just preached
the gospel. That's all he did. What a reward
that would be. That applies not only to preaching,
but it also applies to hearing and believing. All of us hearing
and believing what a reward that would be if the Lord would put
this flesh in subjection to Christ, if he would do that for us. If
he would let us follow after what's good and right, if he
would restrain us, really restrain us from being a hindrance, a
stumbling stone, a rock of offense, if he would keep us from that.
We all have liberties in Christ. We do. That's the first thing
when the Lord opens a sinner's eyes, takes him out of the law,
he shows him Christ, and he shows him what Christ has done, and
he shows him what Christ has put away. And a sinner first
realizes, and it's shocking, we have liberties in Christ.
We do. Paul spent all of chapter 8 telling
us that. We have liberties in Christ. But God's goodness to us would
be to keep us from indulging too much in any liberty that
we have. Or to keep us from certain liberties
altogether if it's going to bring a charge against the gospel of
Christ. Just keep us from it. Paul is
saying even in the context of support, even in the context
of support. Look at verse 18. What is 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 in the gospel. Look back at verse 4. He said,
have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to
lead about a sister, a wife, as well as the other apostles,
and as the brethren of the Lord and Cephas? Or I only am Barnabas,
have we not power to forbear working? Power means privilege,
liberty, right. Verse 18, what is my reward then? Verily that when I preach the
gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that
I abuse not my privilege. My liberty, my right in the gospel. That's my reward. That I wouldn't
be consumed with carnal things. Taken up by carnal things. That my right and my privilege
wouldn't go to my head. And that my right and my privilege
wouldn't go to my thumb. By putting all of God's people
up under this thumb. that I abuse not my power." I don't want to put anybody up
under this thumb. If Christ has set a man free, he's free indeed. He is free. Peter told us that. Go with me quickly to 1 Peter
5. Peter said the same thing. This
is the exact same thing. First Peter five, verse one,
the elders, and that means the preachers, which are among you,
I exhort who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings
of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed.
He said, feed the flock of God, which is among you taking the
oversight, the dispensation thereof. Not by constraint, but willingly. Not for filthy lucre, but of
a ready mind. That means a willing mind. Neither
as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall
appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. What is that crown of glory?
It's the gift of humility. That's what it is. Look at verse
5. Likewise, you younger submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea,
all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud and
he gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under
the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. Humility is our reward. That
liberty to preach, and I'll speak from the heart on this, I'll
speak from my notes, from the heart. That liberty to preach,
I'm telling you personal experience, that liberty to preach, that
free course of the Word, free, free course of the Word, to preach
that happy, joyful Spirit of the Lord. and that liberty to
hear, to hear the gospel without the hindrance of the flesh, some
way, shape or form, without the flesh somehow getting involved
in hindering that preaching of the gospel and that hearing of
the gospel. That's our true reward. That's our reward. There is nothing
greater that we could receive than to preach this, to hear
this, and to believe this without charge. Just freely, just soak
it up. All right, now, I have to close
with this. I still have time to do this,
but I have to show you this. I adore this. I adore this. Go back to the text. First Corinthians 9 verse 18
says, what is my reward then? Verily that when I preach the
gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge. Now, here's the second part of
this reward. I said it means two things. First
thing is that the Lord would let me not hinder it. Okay, but here's my reward. Here's
my reward. Without charge actually translates
costless. Without expense, requiring no
outlay, costing nothing. This calling right here is the
greatest responsibility I have ever known. I've never known
a responsibility like this. Never. This is the weightiest
burden I have ever known. But it's the most rewarding calling
I've ever known. Ever. Here is my reward. When I stand up and preach, I
get to tell people this. Turn over to Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55 verse 1 says, Ho, every
one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he that hath
no money, I mean no money, this thing is without charge. He that
hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come by wine and milk
without money and without price. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. I get to say, whosoever will,
let him come. Take the water of life freely. It's all free. It is all free. Every bit of it is free. What
do I have to do to be a member? What do I have to give to attend
there? Nothing. Nothing. What must I do to be saved? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Well, what is it going to cost
me to win Christ and be found in Him? Nothing. Nothing. Mercy is great. Grace is free. It's free. It cost everything. The charge was everything. The expense was everything, but
the Lord Jesus Christ paid it all. He paid it all. I get to tell sinners, this is
what I get to do. I don't have to stand up here
and say, you better do better, you're not good enough. You broke this one and you broke
this one and you're going to have to, I tell you what, it
takes two good deeds to undo a bad deed. You got a lot of
work to do, buddy. You know what I get to say? It's free. It's free. It's free. That's my reward. That when I
preach the gospel, I'm allowed to make the gospel of Christ
without charge. It's free. I get to say it's
free. There was a show I used to watch
a long time ago called Extreme Home Makeover. Did you ever see
that show? That guy Ty Pennington? They would find a family in need. They wouldn't go to the richest
man in town. Who wants to do that? They'd
find a family in need, a family that had maybe a child with a
disability. Medical bills now has them to
where they're about to lose it all, lose their house, lose it
all. And they're living in, this place ought to be condemned.
And they go in and the whole community comes together and
with a cheerful heart, they all fix up their house and while
they send them away to something great, And then they come back
and reveal it, and the people are crying. And everybody's crying,
and Ty Pennington is crying, and it's just so wonderful. That has to be a rewarding job. That has to be. But I tell you
this, it's nothing like this job. Nothing like it. I get to see sinners. I get to
see sinners who are suffering, dying, being crushed under the
weight of a debt that they cannot pay. And I get to look them straight
in the eyes and say, it's free. You're free. You're free. The truth has set you free. It's all free. Over in 1 Peter,
that next verse said, cast all your care on him for he careth
for you. He does. That's my reward. And
what a reward that is. That's a great reward. I'm the
most rewarded man I know. Alright, you're dismissed.