Recognition and Reward
Disciples Making Disciples: Inner and Outer Lives • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Introduction
Hello church, and thank you for being here with us this week for worship as we gather. This week we will be getting into chapter 9 of 1 Corinthians as Paul delves into, what I call the “Inner and Outer lives” portion of his letter. In these next week Paul give insights into how the walk of a Christian is revealed in their inner walk with the Lord but also how it should be reflected in the world around them.
Reminding ourselves that these words are falling on the ears of the Corinthian church, who have a lot struggles with their inner and outer lives right now. They are reflecting more worldliness than Godliness and Paul seeks to correct some of those behaviors. But he seeks to go further and help change the understanding that influences them as well.
Tension
Today’s subject is one that gets deeper the more you tighten the screws as Paul talks about the attitude the church has regarding Him as an apostle, leader, and preacher. You’ll remember that in Chapter 8, Paul left off talking about not using your freedom in Christ in such a way that it harms those brothers and sisters who are weaker in their faith. The specific issues he named was the idea of eating meat that had been previously sacrificed to pagan idols. Some of the church had come out of those faiths and practices and held particular vulnerabilities towards people in the church who were useing their freedom from such things because of the salvation Christ provided, to partake in something they felt was immoral. This week, Paul picks up by talking about a freedom that should be acknowledged and is not being paid attention too. Let’s start by reading together, 1 Corinthians 9:7-10.
Truth
7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?
8 Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same?
9 For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned?
10 Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop.
Prayer
Exposition
1 Corinthians 9:1–18 (ESV)
In contrast to Paul’s discussion on Christian liberty and the responsibility that we owe towards our fellow Christians, Paul starts off discussing a particular teaching that has been making the rounds in the church. Their laze-fair attitude towards their brothers in the church was apparently stout when regarding Paul and his qualifications.
1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?
2 If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
Paul rapid-fires 4 rhetorical questions to which we would all say, “Yes, yes, yes, and sure” These things all qualified him to stand as a man of authority and calling to the church but, on the more personal side of things, those reading the letter are only doing so because God called and he answered. They are a direct result of him going and teaching and preaching. No matter what others might debate or conflate, these men and women know the truth about his calling and his apostleship.
3 This is my defense to those who would examine me.
In this verse, Paul is looking forward more than backward. He acknowledges that conversations have happened around him but he is more interested in the ones of value that will follow in the future. He feels the need to defend his actions and authority from those that seem to have a problem with both.
A quick aside and reminder for us as well, if the people in Paul’s church talked about him, you can bet that people in church will talk about you as well. Paul had better accolades than all of us in the room and it just goes to show you that people are messy. You are, I am, We are and we don’t always say things right or do the right thing. It always will require us to be as sober as we can be, ready to offer grace when people make mistakes, and quick to ask for and give out forgiveness. What was the chatter surrounding Paul. vs 4.
4 Do we not have the right to eat and drink?
5 Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
The issue isn’t readily clear here but become more so in the reading of the rest of the passage. Paul’s opponents have an issue with he, in particular, claiming any payment for his work as an apostle. You could add the phrase “at the expense of the church” to verses 4 and 5 and it would make perfect sense. Paul is juxtaposing the idea from chapter 8, people declaring that eating meat sacrificed to idols is a right they should be able to engage in but they seem to have no issue saying openly that Paul would be doing something wrong if he were to get payment from the church so that he could just eat normal food.
“Do we not have the right as apostles/teachers/preachers of the word to be able to eat and drink too? Do we have the right to have marriages and families or are we expected to live lives of abject poverty while those we lead can live lavishly?”
6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?
What’s more, all of the other apostles have not come under this attack in their ministry. They have been taken care of by their churches and have even been given allotments to take care of their families but, for whatever reason, the church in Corinth has a particular problem with paying anything to Paul and Barnabas. They are the only ones who have been treated this poorly.
7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?
The Bible Knowledge Commentary (9:7)
Paul saw the right of maintenance as a principle which extended beyond the apostles to others in the church; he illustrated the point along six different lines. The first was custom. The soldier, farmer, and shepherd are all supported by their work.
8 Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same?
9 For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned?
Paul quotes Deuteronomy 25:4 here in an attempt to make his second point regarding the idea of remuneration (re-mune-er-ration), payment owed to a worker who did a job. In essence, everyone knows that you don’t withhold feed from an ox who is running your mill. He would get worn down and sluggish and not do a good job for you. Instead you keep the feed bag on his face often so he can keep eating and keep working. If we all know and get that then why would we do the same to a servant of God? Paul sort of sarcastically calls attention to the fact that this proverb is not meant for the ox but for us. God gave us this teaching so that we would get how to treat each other.
10 Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop.
God means to teach his people how to care for those who labor on their behalf. They are not to be seen as gilded or lazy or entitled but in the same way you would a farmer who works the ground for the crop. A soldier serves in the army but wouldn’t be expected to buy his own gun or feed himself, a farmer plants fruit trees to eat those fruits, a shepherd watches the animals and gets to share in the milk, the ox grinds the flour and gets the feedbag. All these pictures acts as illustrations of the point but also get your head going “yeah, you’re right, everyone knows that.” To this, Paul makes the point.
11 If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?
Here is the rub. Paul and Barnabas and the other Apostles have been serving the people and doing the work of the gospel ministry and yet, the church is arguing about whether or not to pay them anything for the work they’ve done. Paul’s question seems to put it in clear focus. “If we’ve devoted ourselves to building up the body, the church, and your lives, giving you the most important truth you could have ever known, things of eternal value, then why is it that you balk when it comes to sharing in your material and temporary wealth with us? Why is that the line that you feel shouldn’t be crossed.
In my sophomore year of college at SBU I noticed a growing trend in the students as house church became a sort of buzz word among many of them. Some students in our classes were becoming more and more convinced that the old churches in the area and for that matter in America had been allowed to go along and fester for years, missing the point of the gospel, getting bogged down by traditions, religious practices, facilities, governing styles, and money. That, if the church was ever going to survive, let alone thrive, a great reset needed to happen, and that it could never happen in those environments because the broken bone had healed back incorrectly. Such churches, such structure, such failure, needed to be out rightly abandoned and we needed to start over. “We need to go back to Acts and just meet in houses again”, so went the sell. I say that it started to become buzzworthy because you couldn’t get away from these ideas. None of that is to say that house churches are a bad thing at all, but simply that They were brought up in all of our ministry classes as “the” answer. You’d be talking about how to care for the struggling in your church body and someone would say, “Why is that your responsibility as a pastor, shouldn’t the church be the one doing that? Don’t you think that creates further divides between pastors and the people as some sort of holier than you are person?”
After around 6 months of this, a group of pastoral students decided to take the plunge and started up around 5 house churches in their various apartments and sold it around campus as a new church plant where we were going to just do “simple church right.” I’ll never forget the week before the first launch one of the main ringleaders getting up in class and telling us, “If you take a paycheck from the church, the congregation, or the budget you should be ashamed of yourself. That is money that could and should be used for the gospel and for the needs of people in the church. No pastor should ever take money from Christ’s bride.”
The launch came and went and their first week the 5 house churches gathered around 100 college students. The next week about 115, the next week 125, the next week 100, the next week 75, the next week 50, the next week only 3 churches met and by 3 months in only 1 of the groups was still open. Some of the participants told me that it seemed like they were more concerned with differentiating themselves as a righter form of church than traditional churches, than they were about serving Jesus or worshiping him.
Oddly enough, the young man who lectured our class about the evils of taking pay later became a pastor, and collects his check each week from his church in Jefferson City.
I want to kind of pull back the curtain on the ministry for you a little bit and explain some things.
There are for sure some bad apples in the bunch. Every profession has some who get in it for the wrong reasons or aren’t really up to the task. Some seek money, fame, pride, position, and worst of all use their status to exersize power over people. Sadly, in recent years many of these people have been soaking up the headlines while the everyday shepherd of his local community church will never make the papers.
Most guys who get into this are just trying to follow Jesus and be obedient to his calling. God’s call to serve in “the ministry” is a hard one to articulate to others. Its not a “feeling” although feelings are not void in the process. Most don’t hear God audibly tell them anything. Most feel unequal to the task many days.
God is the one who calls and qualifies us for ministry. Education is fine and good and should be pursued by pastors if and when they can, but these things don’t make you fit for the ministry. God is the one who calls and sets us apart for the work. It is important for us as the church to remember who God called as apostles and ask if their resume’s would make it through our first round of search committee picks.
Most pastors are just normal guys and not superhuman. Their families go through the same things. They have trouble making ends meet just like you. They want things they can’t afford, just like you. They mess up, they strike out, they get mad and depressed.
Most could take their skills, education, and experience into the private sector and make 3x what they make for the church. Yet they take those pay-cuts so they can serve the Lord and build up the body.
12 If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.
Paul had not only built up this church, he founded it. Now, we know that the Spirit prompted Paul, worked through him, caused the gospel to be seen and heard, and for their hearts to be opened. He is ultimately responsible for the work, but Paul’s blood, sweat, and tears where the ones that stained the work. He, more than any other man, had more claim on the responsibility of what was happening there. He’d given his life in service to them. Yet, because of the struggles and the talk surrounding any payment he might receive, Paul elected not to exercise his right to have the church take care of him. He saw this as a potential risk to the work and elected to to utilize this right.
13 Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings?
14 In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.
verse 14 states it clearly that “the church” should pay pastors a living for their work and their service.”
Or as this Babylon Bee article puts it...
Church questions pastor’s lavish lifestyle after he purchases a 98’ toyota corrola.
FREDERICK, MD - A quorum of church members at Ridgewood Church voted 56 - 3 in favor of formally reprimanding teaching pastor Stewart Coles for reckless and irresponsible spending upon the discovery that he splurged on an as-is 1998 Toyota Corolla he spotted on Craigslist.
Reporters were able to catch up to one of Ridgewood's deacons Wednesday at a local golf resort as he got out of his Cadillac. "We're not saying it's necessarily a sin for a pastor to make money, but it's definitely unwise to flaunt your wealth like that," the deacon said as he took a few practice swings with his new Callaways. "We openly call upon Pastor Coles to repent of his lavish, prodigal lifestyle."
According to the church's disclosed financial information, Coles pulls in a cool $42,000.00 per year plus a lucrative $500.00 continuing education fund. Congregation members began to question his opulent lifestyle in early April as he was spotted eating at Denny's with his wife for their fourth wedding anniversary, but the scandal didn't fully break until he was seen rolling up in the gaudy $1,500.00 vehicle, complete with sunroof, cassette deck, FM radio, air conditioning, and a full three out of four automatic windows functioning properly.
Pretty funny but to be fair, over the years I’ve seen and heard stories that sounded like this satire, but weren’t.
I’ve had friends whose kid’s developed issues with reading because they couldn’t afford glasses when they were little because the church offered no insurance and they didn’t make enough to get any anywhere else.
A mentor of mine’s church was going through a tough spell and a member of his congregation got up and asked why they were paying him, the pastor, so much for basically teaching 1 time a week and sitting in his office. This happened to be during the same season when he was working 2 other jobs so that he could keep up with his wife’s cancer treatments and their last two car payments bounced. We loaded up a car with groceries and had a friend drop them off because we knew they wouldn’t accept them from us.
Amanda and I have a couple, who are friends in ministry, who took a widow in their congregation into their own home to care for her when a local nursing home wasn’t doing a good job. Her family was thrilled with the giant discount they got in cost too. Everyone was happy until the woman decided to put the couple in her will. The family came unglued and eventually came after this pastor and his wife, disrupting every business meeting, and forcing them to leave the church. Years later, they were still being dragging into court from the family and the church suing them.
The phrase I was told was “sheep bite.” And for sure, we could spend a great time going through all the ways we miss the mark.
But Paul’s point is that as the church, we should make it a priority to make sure we honor those who work for the Lord, build up the body of Christ, and pour the truth into our lives and families by paying them well.
15 But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.
16 For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
17 For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship.
18 What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
Paul closes out in these last 4 verses by explaining the reward for his ministry is not in a paycheck, even though one would be owed to him by right. No, he does what he does for the Lord. For his glory and his kingdom. A steward doesn’t own anything but he is responsible for managing it for the owner. In this way, Paul is a steward of the gospel truth that has been entrusted to him. He “must” preach the gospel. The pull, the tug, is so great that he could do no other thing.
I will admit, I get a little soap-boxy with such passages and not for reasons you might think. It’s because I have seen the church get twisted about such matters and throw the pitch into the dirt. To be sure, some pastors are paid too much. Some are lazy. Some seek only what they can get rather than building up the body. But most situations are not that way. If I were to boil this down, I think 3 things come across to me as points of application for us.
Landing
We honor God when we care for our pastors, ministers, missionaries, and servants well.
We honor God when we care for our pastors, ministers, missionaries, and servants well.
I am taken care of at this church in case you thought different. God has always provided what we needed and allowed us to find contentment in those seasons. I tell every church I’ve ever been at that money will not be the final factor in whether I come to serve or not. However, I want to always be the kind of leader in the church that champions caring for our pastors and staff well. Some of you will have the opportunity in your lives to serve at this church or another on a pastor search committee or a personnel team. those responsibilities aren’t small ones. Make sure that we as the church do well to honor and care for staff and their families in a way that honors God.
Payment, or lack thereof, is no excuse to put off the calling to preach the Word or do the work God has given to us.
Payment, or lack thereof, is no excuse to put off the calling to preach the Word or do the work God has given to us.
Some of the best ministers of the gospel I’ve ever had the opportunity to serve alongside of were bi-vocational or volunteers. Some men held multiple degrees and were serving in a congregation where they’d never get a check because it was that or the mortgage. The call is the call even if you don’t get anything for doing it. This goes for ministers and for all of us. We are called to be ambassadors of the gospel even if we never get any earthly rewards, accolades, or back pats, ever. The gospel and seeing lives changed by it are the real reward. Being obedient to the call is the primary reason we do all that we do and we must never forget it.
Ministers are those who are called, but still just as human as we are.
Ministers are those who are called, but still just as human as we are.
I will die falling on this grenade. I throw away every piece of mail I get that says “Reverend Juston Davidson” on it. If you think i am revered you are just trying to sell me something. Friends, stop putting pastors and their families on a pedestal. Stop making them live in a glass fishbowl that you wouldn’t put your family in. Love them where they are and realize, like you, they have struggles and hardships. Care for them in the valley. Celebrate them and with them as God sends blessings. I am apart of our association’s executive board and I get all the text chains of all prayer requests from our pastors. They hurt too. They have jobs disappear. They hold hands in hospitals, pray with you and your family, and then find out that their wife has cancer too. Their kids need braces and new clothes just like yours do, and they aren’t bad people if their family goes on a vacation now and then. They aren’t superhuman, and they aren’t required to take vows of poverty because they chose to follow the Lord. they just know Jesus and want you to know him too. Love them and their families, warts and all.
I will always fight this battle, not because I am a pastor, but because I often feel like I can’t believe that I am one. I’ve been so heavily invested in by such men and their families that I can’t not speak up for them. I am blessed to serve in this church that loves me and my family well but others don’t serve in that luxury. Love them well and encourage their churches too.
14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Lord, we pray for our nation. We ask for wisdom, discernment, and guidance for our nation, for our leaders, and for ourselves. That we will repent of our wickedness as a nation and turn back to you. That we would seek your kingdom first and in doing so, share the hope you bring with our lost and dying world.
We pray for leaders to lead well and for leaders that fear you and hold to your truths to be raised up
We pray for protection and safety over them and their families and for those that protect them.
We pray that rhetoric and media don’t allow us to see our neighbors as the enemy but as men and women that you died for and want to see saved.
We pray for us. That we would seek you first and be sober minded, God-honoring, and voices of wisdom this year as elections season ramps up.
We pray Lord, for revival. We want to see you spirit fall on our nation and we ask that it start in us. That we would be a nation, like ancient Israel, who would be restored and remade in your image, for your purposes, and for your glory.
we also want to pray for Cindy short as she leaves this week to go to Honduras with a team of medical personnel to perform surgeries in the name of Jesus.
