This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to 1st Corinthians chapter 9,
first day of our five-day look at this chapter. We're in the middle of a section
in which Paul is talking about our rights and our freedom and our love. And as
we look at verses 1 to 12 today, he's going to begin for us to talk about this
very important truth in our lives as believers.

The truth is this, I do not have the right to give up my freedom in Christ, but
I do have the freedom to give up my rights. I do not have the right to give up
my freedom in Christ. Book of Galatians is all about that.

But I do have the freedom to give up certain rights. Now as un-American as that
may sound because we're all about rights, sometimes rights need to be given up,
a certain right rather than fought for. Sometimes the most holy use of your
Christian freedom is the refusal to claim it in certain situations.

Now, when and how and why and maybe even are you sure are some of the questions
we have about that. Well, 1st Corinthians 9 brings into focus those times when
rights can be wrong. Paul begins this whole discussion.

He's going to focus in this chapter on his giving up his rights and why he would
do it and what situations he would do it in and not do it in. But he begins by
declaring his freedom in Christ. Because the foundation for giving up any right,
sacrificing anything in your life because you love somebody else, the foundation
has to be freedom.

If the foundation is guilt, it's going to go wrong. If the foundation is fear,
it's going to go wrong. The foundation has to be freedom and love.

And so Paul begins by saying in verses 1 and 2, "Am I not free? Am I not an
apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?

Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? Even though I may not be an
apostle to others, certainly I am an apostle to you. For you are the seal of my
apostleship in the Lord.

" An apostle, part of the gift of an apostle was to go and start a church
somewhere. And Paul had started this church in Corinth. Well, now these people
are beginning to argue about their own freedom and rights and in doing that
they're beginning to argue about whether Paul should have demanded other
freedoms or other rights.

And he begins by saying, "Am I not free? " We're free in Christ. He might be
echoing the Corinthians words here.

We're free in Christ so we can eat meat unless we're restricted by some law.
Paul reminds us here, if you're free, then we're all free in Christ. And that's
not really the question.

The question, as we looked at last week, the question is love. We are free.
We're no longer bound to the law.

We've been set free from the law. Now that makes some of us uncomfortable, some
like rules rather than the freedom of a relationship, but we are free in Christ.
The Old Testament law guides us.

The Old Testament law shows us the directions of God, but we're not bound by
that law. We've been set free from that law having to save us. Paul proclaims
here his right to act in freedom.

And he proclaims it with some questions. First question is, "Am I not an
apostle? " He's saying, "If you as Corinthians feel like you're privileged
people, privileged enough to be free to eat meat, I'm privileged all the more.

I'm an apostle. " He'd seen Jesus. He'd been commissioned personally by Jesus on
the Damascus road to proclaim Jesus' freedom to the Gentiles.

If anybody understood freedom, Paul understood freedom. Am I not free? Am I not
an apostle?

He says, "Don't I have the right to do certain things? " Listen to what he talks
about. Very, very clear and personal here.

Beginning in verse three, Paul says, "This is my defense to those who sit in
judgment on me. Don't we have the right to food and drink? Don't we have the
right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the
Lord's brothers and Cephas?

Or is it only I and Barnabas who must work for a living? Who serves as a soldier
at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes?

Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk? Do I say this merely from a
human point of view? Doesn't the law say the same thing?

For it's written in the law of Moses, 'Do not muzzle an ox while he's treading
out the grain. '" Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he says this
for us, doesn't he?

Yes, this was written for us because when the plowman plows and the thresher
threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. If we have
sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from
you? If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the
more?

Paul writes very personally here, and he says, "In my freedom in Christ, I have
certain undeniable rights. I have a right to eat and drink, to have my basic
needs met. I have a right to take along a believing wife to a family life.

" God's giving me that right. And he says, "I even have the right of support
from the churches. I didn't take that right, but I have that right.

" And he brings in the pictures of someone who has planted a garden. They should
eat some of that garden, or someone who is a shepherd, they should drink some of
the milk. And he points it to even the Old Testament law, while an ox is
treading out the grain, he shouldn't be muzzled.

As he's treading the grain, walking around and around so that that grain can be
tread out from the wheat, he should be able to not have a muzzle on, but if he's
hungry, he should be able to reach down and eat some of that grain. Paul says,
"I've got rights. " And as a believer, you have rights.

Now, you have rights as a citizen, yes, you're very familiar with those, your
bill of rights. But you also have rights as a Christian, you have a right to
live the life that God has given to you according to his direction and not man's
direction. And you have a right to many of these things that Paul talked about
here.

Paul is very strong on freedom, on the fact that we have rights. We have to take
note from the very beginning of what we're going to talk about this week, that
rights are not wrong just because some other Christian says you don't have the
right to do that. Paul is not recommending that we put ourselves under the
authority of another's opinions, but under the authority, under the priority of
the love of Christ, of the gospel of Christ.

We do have freedom, we do have rights as believers. And that freedom, those
rights are the foundation of everything that we're going to talk about this
week. We're going to talk about giving to others out of that freedom, but you
cannot give to others out of what you do not have.

So you have to start by thinking of all that Jesus has given for you, all that
he's given to you. Even as Paul said, we have certain rights, you have certain
rights as a believer. And you have the practical rights that he talked about,
the right of a family, the right of meeting your physical needs, the right of
enjoying a benefit out of something that you've built.

And if anybody says to you, oh, you shouldn't enjoy that right, you should
pretend like God didn't give you that gift. You have the right of the gifts of
God given in your life. I'm concerned for believers who somehow cannot enjoy
that right.

They can't enjoy the fact that God has given me this and God has given me that
and God has met my need that way. There's a false kind of spiritual pride that
somehow has to deny any gift of God beyond the gift of salvation and pretend
that it really hasn't been given. And maybe it's in comparison with others who
don't have those gifts.

And so it makes you feel guilty that you do. Or maybe it's the fact that you
feel you don't deserve those gifts. Well, you don't.

You definitely do not deserve those gifts. But they've been given by God. And so
you accept them.

You receive them as his gifts, whether it's your family, or it's the food that
you have, or it's the business that you have, or the place that you live. God
has given you those gifts. And Paul saw in those gifts the right to enjoy what
God has given.

He saw that as a foundation of everything. That's the foundation for doing in a
healthy way what we're going to talk about the rest of this week. Until you have
that foundation, until you know that you've been given those rights, you can't
give them away.

You can't give away what you don't know you've been given. So today as we pray,
I want to pray for a new freedom to enjoy what God has given. Jesus, thank you.

Thank you for all that you've given. Every good and perfect gift is from the
Father in heaven. Thank you for what you've given to us.

And thank you that we can enjoy those gifts you've given all things to enjoy.
Lord, if somehow out of guilt, or out of fear, or out of a sense of compassion
for others even that they don't have some of these things, we've been not
enjoying what you've given, I pray you'd give us the freedom in Christ, a new
freedom in Christ beginning this very day to enjoy the gifts that you've given.
Sometimes by giving them away, sometimes by enjoying them and using them for
your sake, but in any case to enjoy, to enjoy the fact you put us in this world,
to enjoy the fact you've saved us by the love of Christ, to enjoy the fact
you've given us a family, to enjoy the fact and the way that you meet our
physical needs, to enjoy where you've placed us in our work.

Lord, thank you. And I pray for the freedom to enjoy today, the freedom to
recognize that out of your love for us these gifts have been given. Help us
today to begin with that freedom.

We ask this in your name. Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to dig into this, Paul's
going to talk about when rights are wrong.