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Well, good morning. 
Wow, silence is deafening. 

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Let's try again. 
Good morning. 

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Hey, it's great to be with you 
this morning. 

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It's great to be opening up 
God's word with you. 

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My name is Andrew Evans. 
I'm one of the pastor's here at 

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Church of the Resurrection. 
Let me encourage you to turn in 

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your Bibles to page 900 to the 
passage from First Corinthians. 

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We are continuing our series 
looking at Paul's letter to the 

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church in Corinth. 
So before we get started, let me

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pray for us. 
Father, you are a God who does 

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not stand far from us, but you 
speak to us and you call us to 

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yourself, and you call us into 
what you are doing in the world.

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And so, Lord, I pray that you 
would speak with power through 

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your word this morning. 
I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

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Now in the backyard, back corner
of our backyard, we have a 

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little garden. 
My wife loves to garden. 

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And so when we moved into our 
house, she had a vision for 

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putting a raised bed garden in 
the this back corner of the 

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yard. 
And shortly after we moved in 

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there, she, she got a line 
basically on an almost unlimited

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supply of very large used 
pallets, you know, like the used

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for shipping things. 
And so she, she and I hauled, or

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actually the contractors hauled 
a bunch of pallets over to our 

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yard and I set about cutting 
them up and prying them apart 

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and nailing them back together 
to create raised garden beds. 

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And so now we have probably 8 or
so rather recycled looking 

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raised garden beds in the in our
backyard. 

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Now think about these boxes that
I made out of this recycled 

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pallet wood. 
What is the value of those boxes

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that I spent hours trying to 
construct in themselves? 

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I don't think that they have 
much value at all. 

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They're a little bit too big to 
be burned as firewood. 

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They don't look that great. 
Frankly. 

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The only value that these boxes 
have is in what fills them 

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right. 
They are worthless until my wife

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came along and filled them with 
dirt and compost and seeds and 

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hours of tender care. 
These boxes are made to be 

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filled. 
Now. 

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The same can actually be said of
so many aspects of our lives 

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that we place a lot of value in.
Those things that we hold so 

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valuable can actually are 
actually worthless in a real 

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sense until they are filled with
something. 

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Both our gospel lesson and our 
Psalm, we're speaking to the 

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sort of relative value of money.
We can really value money, 

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right? 
But what is the value, actual 

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value in itself, of the number 
on the bank account, number of 

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dollars you have, or the amount 
of cash in your wallet? 

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It's not in itself. 
It's not very high. 

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Until that money is filled, it's
potential is filled with 

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intention and direction. 
And the same can be true, I 

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think, most relevantly for our 
passage of our freedom. 

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Freedom is like a garden box, 
right? 

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It's empty in a sense. 
It's worthless until you start 

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to do something with it. 
Now, if the gospel message gives

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great freedom to everybody who 
believes it, everybody's looking

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to Christ is free. 
But the point of that freedom 

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isn't simply to be free. 
Christ sets his people free so 

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that the garden boxes of their 
lives can be filled with life. 

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And this is Paul's point in our 
passage in First Corinthians 

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today. 
Paul is continuing his argument 

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here about idolatry and about 
meat offered to idols that he 

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began back at the beginning of 
chapter 8. 

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But his discussion isn't just 
about idols and meat and temples

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and Pagan rituals. 
Here he's touching on the deep 

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issues of freedom, rights, 
community obligations, and then 

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here today, God's mission, God's
mission. 

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Thinking about idolatry 
inevitably leads us to think 

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about God's mission in the world
and our role in it. 

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Paul here in this passage is 
inviting the Corinthian church, 

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and he's inviting us to fill our
lives with God's mission. 

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His main point is this. 
The gospel frees us to go on 

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mission. 
The gospel frees us to go on 

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mission. 
And we'll look at this by 

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looking at the two paragraphs 
that we have in at least the 

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English translation that we're 
using right here. 

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The gospel sets us free first 
for missional service and then 

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for missional discipline. 
Missional service and missional 

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discipline. 
That's where we're headed. 

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So Paul begins our passage by 
noting that he is free from all 

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the gospel has set him free from
needing the approval, or even in

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a sense, needing the support of 
other people. 

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He's free, but his freedom isn't
a reason for him to indulge 

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himself. 
Out of his freedom, Paul chooses

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to make himself a servant of 
all, by which he means that he 

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is actively seeking to win more 
people to Christ. 

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He then goes on to explain what 
this looks like. 

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Right. 
He adapts his life to those of 

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the people around him. 
He doesn't compromise on what he

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believes, but he readily enters 
into the lives of the people 

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around him in order to find a 
way to tell them about Christ. 

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So for the Jews, for example, he
lives like a Jew. 

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To those under the law, under 
the Jewish law, he lives like 

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those under the law. 
Now, he's not actually under the

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Jewish law in the same way that 
they are thinking about 

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themselves, but he eagerly takes
on their burdens and their 

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requirements in order to have 
access to them. 

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In a sense, this means he likely
observed Jewish holidays refrain

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refrain from eating non kosher 
food with them. 

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He took on their restrictive 
lifestyle choices. 

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They wouldn't say it's a 
lifestyle, but he took on their 

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restrictive lifestyle choices 
all for the sake of bringing 

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some of them to Christ. 
And he does the same actually 

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for those who are outside of the
law. 

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Paul here is happy to 
accommodate himself to the non 

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sinful choices of those around 
him, all for the sake of being 

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able to share the gospel with 
them. 

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Now odds are that Paul is a good
Jewish man, probably did not 

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have a taste for pork. 
You know those ribs that you 

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love? 
He probably would not have loved

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those because he didn't grow up 
with pork. 

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But I suspect here that he's 
saying that he happily gladly 

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ate non kosher food all for the 
sake of being able to win some 

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to Christ. 
And last Paul mentions here the 

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week. 
Now he's talked about the week 

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earlier as as people who have 
these scruples about, about 

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things that they should be doing
or not be doing. 

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And he's happy, happy to 
accommodate himself to the week,

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joining them in their scruples 
in order to avoid scandalizing 

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them and so draw them to Christ.
So in all these ways, Paul here 

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is being a servant by laying 
down his preferences and 

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accommodating himself to those 
whom he's trying to win. 

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This is what he means in the 
second-half of verse 22. 

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I've become all things to all 
people that by all means I might

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save some. 
Paul here isn't being a 

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spineless wimp, sort of mealy 
mouthed sycophant who simply 

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tells you what you want to hear.
That's not what he's doing. 

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He is deliberately and self 
consciously laying down his 

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preferences for the sake of 
those around him in order to 

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share the gospel with them. 
Now in, in certain countries, 

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like in Rwanda, where my wife 
and I lived for a bit, if a 

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group of foreigners or a group 
of dignitaries, you could say, 

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come to a village, a more rural 
village, they will often kill an

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animal for you in in order to 
create a feast. 

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This is how they show 
hospitality. 

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Now imagine if you are a, an 
American vegetarian and you're 

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working in Rwanda and you, you 
have a mission. 

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You need to go to a meeting in 
one of these villages and you 

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show up, you know, you drive up 
in your Land Cruiser and you 

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walk up and out. 
They come to celebrate you and 

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they hand you this plate of 
rather scrawny looking chicken 

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legs fried up just for you. 
Now, you don't like meat, What 

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do you do? 
You eat the chicken. 

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That's what you do. 
You lay down your preferences. 

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You become like they are meat 
eating and all, all for the sake

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of your mission to that village.
Now this is Paul's vision of 

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missionary service. 
Here he is pulled so deeply into

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God's mission that he wants to 
become a servant of all so that 

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he can win some to Christ. 
This is, in a sense, one of the 

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greatest expressions of his true
freedom, isn't it? 

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Christ has given him so much. 
He is so rich in Christ that he 

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doesn't have to assert himself. 
He isn't bound to social 

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conventions or or social 
expectations because of who he 

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is and what he has received in 
Christ. 

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He can lay down his own 
preferences without fear of what

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that means for his identity, 
such as the freedom and the 

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security that he has in Christ. 
Well, friends, do you know this 

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freedom? 
A freedom that's so great that 

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you can lay down your 
preferences in service to 

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others? 
Or are you so afraid of losing 

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your identity and your 
individuality? 

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We are right to be proud of who 
we are. 

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We're about to be right to be 
proud of where we came from, of 

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our culture, our heritage. 
But the Gospel calls us to a 

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looseness with our own 
preferences, no matter how 

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deeply rooted, and invites us to
be willing to subjugate our own 

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desires for the sake of the 
Gospel and for the sake of being

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able to share about Jesus with 
other people. 

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This is actually one of the 
great reasons for ministry teams

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like the Cross Cultural and 
Justice Ministry here at Res 

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CCJM has spent time in the past 
educating clergy and staff and 

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volunteers on cultural awareness
so that we can be aware of how 

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we bring our own cultural 
preferences and and and 

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peculiarities into different 
situations and thus be better 

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able to actually lay those down 
in the service of the gospel. 

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Now you might have noticed that 
I am a, you could say a white 

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guy from South Carolina. 
I like Chick-fil-A. 

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I like bluegrass music. 
And some of you might think that

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those are just sort of the the 
good things in life that God 

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gave the world. 
And you know, I don't disagree 

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with you. 
I think those are great. 

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But those are also cultural 
preferences that I need to be 

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willing to set aside in certain 
situations for the greater call 

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of the mission of the gospel in 
the world. 

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Now, for example, I have family 
who are vegan. 

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I don't understand that. 
I I like meat, I don't like 

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tofu, but I will eat tofu with 
them in order to love them and 

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to give me an opportunity to 
share about Jesus with them. 

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Now, in a sense, these are 
trivial examples, right? 

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They only scratch the surface of
ways that we can be called to 

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set aside our own preferences 
and be all things for all people

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in the service of the gospel. 
But when we do these things, 

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when we adopt this mindset of a 
servant, set aside our own 

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preferences to enter into 
somebody else's culture, into 

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somebody else's world, we were 
actually entering into the heart

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of the gospel message itself, 
because the the gospel is a 

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message fundamentally of 
salvation, crossing cultural 

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boundaries. 
Christ, you could say, left his 

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own culture. 
He left his home, took on the 

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form of a servant. 
He left the comfort and the 

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glory of heaven, crossed over 
into our world, becoming like us

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in every way so that he might 
win US. 

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Christ served us by becoming 
like us, knowing us, and all of 

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our frailty and weakness. 
The source of our salvation is 

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one of cross cultural service. 
And then the Gospel message has 

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gone out, spread across the 
entire world through cross 

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cultural movement. 
Christianity doesn't bring or 

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offer a culture when it 
encounters a new people. 

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It doesn't import a culture. 
It adapts to the new culture 

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even while drawing those people 
to Christ. 

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You can actually contrast this 
with Islam. 

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I had to go to a a mosque a few 
years ago. 

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It was a class assignment and 
seminary and one of the things 

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that really struck me was the 
bathrooms in the mosque. 

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This is in in northwest DC. 
They have modern plumbing. 

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They have access to all the 
normal, normal things that we 

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would have in our bathrooms. 
But their bathrooms were what 

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you would find in the Middle 
East. 

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That is, that is what they had 
because the mosque was bringing 

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a sort of culture to Northwest 
DC. 

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But that's not what Christianity
does. 

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Christianity brings the message 
of Jesus, and that message of 

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Jesus adapts to culture. 
And so you have manifold 

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different expressions of 
Christianity all throughout the 

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world. 
Christianity is perhaps uniquely

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among all world religions, cross
culture cultural. 

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And the root of that cross 
cultural capacity is Paul's word

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here in the actions of Jesus 
before him. 

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Now, this kind of cross cultural
missionary work can be very 

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exciting, but Paul's point here 
isn't to say that we are all 

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called to a kind of intense 
cross cultural missionary work. 

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Maybe you are called to do that.
I'm so grateful that we have the

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sons here with us. 
They will be sharing about their

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work in the Middle East that 
former members here. 

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What a privilege to have them 
here to talk to us about their 

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work. 
But Paul here is inviting every 

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single one of us to lay down our
preferences in order to serve 

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those around us, in order to 
strive to win them for Christ. 

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Maybe you have a Mormon 
colleague. 

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You've been talking to her about
orthodox Nicene orthodoxy, 

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Christianity. 
Now, even if you really like 

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going out to happy hours and 
having a glass of wine or a cold

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beer, maybe you pass up that 
wine or that beer, that happy 

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hour, in order to open the door 
to more conversations with your 

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teetotalling Mormon colleague. 
Or maybe you have a neighbor 

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from a different ethnic 
background and this this person 

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loves to talk, and they clearly 
have a very different conception

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of time and of social 
obligations than you do. 

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It is very tempting to be 
frustrated with this kind of 

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person because we got to get 
somewhere man, time to wrap it 

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up. 
But maybe instead of just being 

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frustrated, maybe what we are 
called to do is to lay down our 

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preference for punctuality and 
to carve out more time for him 

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in order to allow for 
conversations about Jesus. 

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This kind of self sacrificial 
service can be very hard, but 

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Paul here is inviting all of us 
to do it all for the sake of the

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gospel. 
It requires that adaptability. 

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It requires creativity, It 
requires focus. 

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But it can be so exciting and so
rewarding to be on mission for 

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Jesus in this way. 
So if Paul here is first 

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inviting us to fill our lives 
with missional service, he next 

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calls us into missional 
discipline. 

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Missional discipline. 
This is the point of the second 

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paragraph, verses 24 to 27. 
Now remember that Paul's 

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overarching argument is about 
what we should do with our 

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freedom, how we should hold our 
freedom. 

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He calls us to fill it with 
missional service, but here he's

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warning US against the dangers 
of selfishly indulging our 

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freedom. 
Christ sets us free, but the 

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proper and effective use of that
freedom requires discipline. 

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Paul points to the example of 
runners in a competition in a 

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stadium. 
All of the runners had the same 

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goal to win the race. 
And in pursuit of that goal, all

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of the runners must exercise 
discipline, self-control in all 

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things. 
I remember reading about the 

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great Kenyan marathoner Eliud 
Kipchoge. 

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He may still be be active. 
He's sort of declined a little 

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bit, but he has this incredibly 
Spartan lifestyle. 

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While he's preparing for 
marathons. 

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He has this training camp in the
Highlands of Kenya. 

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He lives there for months away 
from his family, monitoring his 

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diet and his exercise so 
closely. 

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He's cleaning toilets with the 
other runners. 

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They're all with a single minded
focus on becoming the best 

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marathoner he can be, and the 
result is that he's the only 

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person to ever run a marathon in
under 2 hours. 

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This is the image that Paul has 
in mind for all Christians. 

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We are free to pursue the prize 
of the gospel, to run after 

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Christ with all that we have. 
Christ didn't set us free just 

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so that we could indulge our 
passions and live however we 

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want. 
That isn't freedom, but slavery.

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Instead, he sets us free to run 
after Him, to pursue the prize 

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of eternal life with him. 
And that requires discipline, 

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discipline. 
And Paul gives us a sense here 

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for the intensity of what he's 
talking about in verses 26 and 

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27. 
Paul has a single minded focus 

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on eternal life. 
And the result is that he 

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disciplines his body and keeps 
it under control. 

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A more literal translation would
be I beat my body and enslave 

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00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:21,080
it. 
What he doesn't want to happen 

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00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:23,520
is that. 
He preaches the gospel to other 

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people, but then finds that he 
is disqualified from enjoying it

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himself because he was not 
disciplined. 

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So there you could say there's a
sense here in which in which 

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00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,120
Paul is concerned directly about
a mission to himself. 

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00:20:39,120 --> 00:20:41,240
He wants to preserve his own 
eternal life. 

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But there's a real sense in 
which our discipline as 

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Christians can make or break our
witness to other people as well.

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What good is the salvation that 
doesn't break the power of sin 

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and evil and vice over our 
lives? 

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Christ calls us to a consistency
between what we proclaim and how

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00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:05,600
we live. 
How many people have had their 

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faith shipwrecked by pastors who
were great in the pulpit but had

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00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:16,280
a substantial moral failing? 
How many people look at the 

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00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:22,120
church and see only hypocrisy 
and selfishness and say, I don't

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00:21:22,120 --> 00:21:24,520
want to have anything to do with
that. 

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I love Jesus, but I don't want 
what they have? 

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00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:33,880
The way we live not only as a 
demonstration of the reality of 

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our own faith, but it can be a 
help or a hindrance to our 

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00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:44,120
participation in gospel mission.
And striking here that at the 

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00:21:44,120 --> 00:21:48,120
end of our passage, Paul returns
to this idea of being a servant 

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00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:51,520
or a slave. 
Paul knows he is free. 

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00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:53,600
This is the glorious truth of 
the gospel. 

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But he voluntarily makes himself
a servant, all for the sake of 

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00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:00,920
the gospel. 
Here at the end, he talks about 

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00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:05,760
making his body a servant again 
in order to preserve his own 

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00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:09,320
salvation. 
Walking faithfully in our 

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00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:13,960
freedom requires discipline that
can feel like servitude. 

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The reality is, though, that we 
will all serve something or 

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00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,360
someone. 
We will serve ourselves, our own

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00:22:21,360 --> 00:22:27,400
appetites, anxieties, ambitions,
or we will serve someone else. 

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The idea of being completely 
free is either false or so 

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abstract as to be meaningless. 
The real question for all of us 

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is whom will we serve? 
And Paul makes it very clear 

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00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:46,160
whom he will serve. 
He is eagerly serving the 

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00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:48,680
mission of God, the mission of 
Christ. 

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He wants salvation for himself 
and for as many others as 

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00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:56,640
possible. 
And he's inviting us all to 

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00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:59,960
follow him in that service of 
God's mission. 

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00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:04,040
That service can be hard. 
It requires discipline, but it 

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00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:08,360
is so, so good. 
In fact, it's the only service 

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00:23:09,120 --> 00:23:14,440
that ultimately leads to life. 
Athletes in Corinth, when they 

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00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:18,160
won the race, received a, you 
know, a Laurel of wilting 

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leaves. 
We are disciplined here in our 

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00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:26,120
city in order to receive money, 
power, prestige, status, 

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00:23:26,120 --> 00:23:29,000
pleasure that will all pass 
away. 

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But filling our lives with 
Christ and with His mission 

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00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:41,680
gives us an imperishable prize. 
There is nothing more beautiful,

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00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:48,320
nothing more satisfying, nothing
more lasting than eternal life 

349
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:55,120
with God. 
Jim and Elizabeth Elliott were 

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00:23:55,120 --> 00:24:00,760
missionaries in the 50s to South
America trying to reach 

351
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:07,440
unreached tribes there. 
Jim Elliott was martyred by the 

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00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,440
tribe he was trying to reach, he
wrote in his journal before he 

353
00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:15,680
died. 
He is no fool who gives away 

354
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:19,240
what he cannot keep to gain what
he cannot lose. 

355
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:24,920
Now, Jim Elliott laid down his 
life to follow Jesus on mission,

356
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:29,160
But I think the life of his wife
and his daughter perhaps even 

357
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:34,240
more powerfully illustrate what 
it means to follow Jesus on 

358
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,960
mission. 
They could. 

359
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,280
Elizabeth and Valerie Elliott 
could have just gone back to the

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00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:43,040
United States. 
That would have been the obvious

361
00:24:43,120 --> 00:24:44,960
rational, prudent thing to do, 
right? 

362
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:51,520
But they continued Jim's work, 
and a few years later, they 

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00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:56,840
actually made contact with that 
same tribe that killed Jim. 

364
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:03,600
They lived with them. 
Perhaps we're the first people 

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00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:06,920
from outside the tribe to meet 
the tribe, live with them, and 

366
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:11,160
actually come out alive. 
They learn the language in order

367
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:15,600
to translate the Bible for them.
They became like that in many, 

368
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:20,080
many ways, adopting their 
cultural customs for a time, 

369
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:24,720
laying down not only the comfort
of life in America, but the 

370
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:31,160
desire for retribution, their 
physical safety, all in order to

371
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:36,120
win them to Christ. 
And the result of following God 

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00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,880
and his mission was an eternal 
harvest of souls. 

373
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:46,880
Many in that tribe came to know 
Jesus because Elizabeth and 

374
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:50,680
Valerie didn't want to hold on 
to their freedom, but instead 

375
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:56,360
filled it up with Christ like 
service and discipline, all so 

376
00:25:56,360 --> 00:25:58,880
that they might win some to 
Christ. 

377
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:01,760
They did it for the sake of the 
gospel. 

378
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:06,720
My friends, you are free. 
The gospel sets you free. 

379
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:08,840
So what are you using your 
freedom for? 

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00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:14,080
Let's follow the example of 
Paul, the example of our Savior,

381
00:26:15,120 --> 00:26:18,520
and use our freedom for the sake
of the mission of the gospel. 

382
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,440
In the name of the Father and of
the Son of the Holy Spirit, 

383
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Amen.