Freedom with Purpose: The Reward

All right. Good morning. Just an update. My family did get here. They're okay. It's all right. It's okay. Oh, look at you guys enjoying the coffee. Isn't it so good? I'm pretty proud of our coffee. Of all the things to be proud of. I am proud of the coffee. That just shows my priorities, I guess. I'm a weirdo.

Man, well, glad to have you guys here. We are on week three of a short series. We've concluded it's going to be four weeks, not three weeks. I was thinking maybe three weeks, but no, it's definitely going to be four weeks. So we're on week three out of four weeks of a short series through a section of the book of 1 Corinthians, chapters eight through 10. Now, I'm not going to go back through the context. I'd encourage you, this is sort of like, they're really contextually dense passages, right?

And so I'm not going to do all the work of kind of reminding you of what we said in the weeks past. I would encourage you, if there's something you're not clear on about the context, just go back and listen to the previous weeks. We have a podcast. We have all the YouTube videos if you want to watch me, which you probably don't. But if you could just listen to me, which you probably don't want to do it either. But we could rerecord them with someone else's voice that's less annoying than

mine. I don't know. We'll look into it. I'm sure the internet could do that for us. I'm sorry. I just make self-deprecating jokes. It's just what I know how to do. Though I do think I have an annoying voice. But I'm not going to go back through, you, but I would encourage you to listen to those messages to just get caught up. But to just kind of get you up and running, in case you haven't listened to those, we are hearing from Paul.

Paul is this famous missionary, a church planter, who really the first person to have established churches outside of Jerusalem early on in the church's existence, right? So he's gone out to different places. And we know about Paul primarily from his own writings, his letters that he was writing to the various churches that he's established. And here in the book of 1 Corinthians, we have his first letter to the Corinthian church.

And so he's talking to the Corinthians. And at this point in the letter, Paul is mediating a conflict. There's a conflict within the church, within these people who are Christians, and they're arguing. I have a little visual representation of of the fight. They're arguing over if they could or if they're allowed to eat meat sacrificed to idols. Which is a whole thing that we don't have any familiarity with. But if you want to figure out what that means, go back and listen to the other messages.

But suffice it to say, in ancient Roman cities, if you were going to eat meat, which I like to do, you were probably going to eat meat sacrificed to idols because that's just what they had. The meat left over from the pagan worship in these cities was sold in the markets. So if you wanted to get a good steak, you wouldn't go down to Jack's and get something like, you know, medium rare. Delicious.

Sorry to do that to you. You would actually go to the Temple of Apollo or the Temple of Diana, you know, one of these places where meat was being sacrificed to these Roman pagan gods. And then they would serve it up, of course, for a fee, right? And you could actually like eat there in those places. So if you wanted a nice filet mignon, you'd just go to Apollo's temple. And that was just a part of their culture. It was just the norm, not only in Corinth, but throughout the Roman world.

But this practice was dividing the church. It was dividing the church. On one side, there was a group of people who believed that it was just wrong for those who don't worship false idols, who worship the one true God, who worship Jesus Christ, who worship and believe that God created all things and that there are no other gods before him, they thought it was wrong to eat this meat because it was meat that was like dedicated to and it's the product of this kind of false worship.

And so they just thought it's just something that Christians shouldn't touch at all. But on the other side of this conflict, there's this group of people who don't really get what the big deal is.

They don't really think it should matter because because it's not because they're just like they just really like meat though that might be part of it it's they've read the scriptures and they understand like that that one of the great gifts that we have in christ is freedom freedom from all the laws freedom from all the rules like like we don't come to god and please him on the basis of our performance of certain rites and rituals and duties

and so they're saying so like whether we eat or whether we don't eat, why does it matter? Because we don't have standing before God, righteousness before God. We don't have peace before God because of the things that we are doing. So like, this seems like an arbitrary thing to say, well, eating this meat is bad because they're just like, well, they just think it's just not a big deal. Like, so, so other people think that this has been sacrificed to idols. We know it's just a cow.

So let's just Just eat the cow and enjoy the cow. It's going to be delicious. There's two sides to this argument. So you see this conflict here, though, it was about, really about freedom. What are we free to do? What kind of freedom do we have as Christians? Is it the kind of freedom that we have, is the kind of freedom that we have, like, just totally unlimited? Like, it's like, okay, so Jesus paid it all, right? We know the old song, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.

Sin has left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow, right? So if Jesus paid it all, if my righteousness and my my standing before God is about what he has done, which is true, then why should it matter that I avoid a certain kind of meat? Or I mean, even other very live questions early on in the churches, why should it matter about my sexual ethics? Why should it matter if I live, if I, you know, am honest or have integrity?

Why should those things matter? Because isn't the gospel, the good news that we're set free from law and we're alive to a new way of living with God where it's not on the basis of my works or my righteousness or my performance, but on Jesus's performance. And that's secure. So why should I have to limit my freedom for any reason? Why shouldn't I be totally free to do whatever I want to do?

The freedom we have in Christ, I would say, and what Paul says and what he's going to great pains to explain to them, it's not a simple liberty to do whatever we desire without consequence, right? So he is saying you're pretty much free, but you're not free from consequences. Your freedom, the freedom that you have is not just total liberty to do anything that you want and not bear any consequence, but it is actually freedom that is rightly guided by a greater purpose.

And I put this slide up the last two times we've met, But I think that the takeaway for Paul, his understanding of our freedom is that we are free people, but we're free people with a purpose. That is to say, if anything tempers our freedom, if anything ought to temper our freedom, it is that we have a purpose. And so, yeah, you're totally free to do what you want, but you're also free to miss out on the purpose of your life. So the choice is yours, is largely what it comes down to.

And Paul keeps encouraging the Corinthians and other churches as well to take care of with their freedom. In another letter he writes to the Galatian church in Galatians 5.13, Paul says this, you were called to be free, brothers and sisters, only don't use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.

You have a calling and a purpose greater than just indulging in your own desires, what Paul would call the flesh, this whole kind of way of living according to just pursuing my good and my self-interest. He says, instead of doing that, you're called to serve one another through love. We have been given great freedom and we're called to love God and others with our freedom. We have a purpose in life, of a purpose in life.

And last week we talked about what that love of others looks like, caring for their conscience, like encouraging people to have this kind of relational connection with the Lord. And it looks like, yeah, helping others know and follow him, be led by him. And then here in 1 Corinthians 9, right? So that was 1 Corinthians 8.

Here in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul is continuing on in his argument and he's using his own life to illustrate what this could look like, illustrate the how and the why of this freedom guided by purpose.

And he begins to ask several rhetorical questions. And what we're going to do for the rest of the time is just dig into 1 Corinthians 9 here, because there's more insight, and there's more about the why behind this that I think we'll find really helpful. So here we go. 1 Corinthians 9, picking up in verse 1. If you've got a Bible, there's Bibles in front of you. Open it up. 1 Corinthians 9, verse 1.

You can follow along. If not, I will have it up here. He says, he asks some rhetorical questions right at the beginning. He says, am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen our Lord Jesus, Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you, because you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. My defense to those who examine me is this.

Don't we have a right to eat and drink? Don't we have a right to be accompanied by a believing wife like the other apostles. Or do only Barnabas and I have no right to refrain from working? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not drink the milk of the flock?

What Paul begins to do is he's approaching this question of freedom by illustrating his own life and illustrating the way that his freedom has been guided by purpose. And he begins by establishing that he has freedom and that he has certain rights. And he's not denying that. He claims to have rights as an apostle. And through this, kind of like a little bit, like Paul, he was kind of of annoying, right?

I mean, he's asking this endless series of questions. It's like the people who would have been reading this would have been like, okay, okay, we get it, Paul. But Paul's like, no, you don't. You really need to understand this. He really is establishing something. He's insistent that he does have rights.

Because what he's trying to do is help those who are insistent upon their rights and on exercising their rights and their freedom understand that he is a living example of a totally free person who has subjected his own freedom to his purpose. And through his questions, he is establishing right here, right now, that he's free and he has rights. He has certain entitlements. He reminds them that as an apostle and as a founder of their church, he actually has a ton of rights.

He has the right to ask them to support him financially.

Financially he says that's just that's just good reason it's reasonable it's it's what the other apostles and disciples do in the works of their ministry it's reasonable for him to ask for for some financial support for him and his family he has the right to be paid for his labor but one thing we know about paul from this passage and in other passages is that paul even though he could he was never the type of person who would send an invoice to

anybody he didn't have an accounts receivable department. He was not a person who went out and spread the gospel and did his missionary work and established these churches, giving his whole life over to them, and then said, okay, here's the bill. You need to start to pay me. We definitely do see that sometimes, once a church was established, they would turn around and willingly, according to their own intention, would pay for Paul's missionary work to go other places.

But Paul was never like, he was never like on a contractual basis with these people. Paul was happy to serve without expecting a dime in return. Though, and he makes this point really clearly, he insists it would have been well within his rights to ask for such an arrangement. It would have been well within his rights to expect to be paid for the work that he's doing because he's giving his whole life to this work.

So he goes on, he kind of, he says, this is the situation. He goes on, he sort of explains what's going on there. Okay. He goes on in verse eight, picking up in verse eight. He says, am I saying this from a human perspective? Doesn't the law also say these same things? For it is written in the law of Moses, do not muzzle an ox while it treads out grain. Is God really concerned about oxen?

Isn't he really saying it for our sake? Yes, this is written for our sake because he who plows ought to plow in And he who threshes should thresh in hope of sharing the crop. If we have sown spiritual things to you, is it too much if we reap material benefits from you? If others have this right to receive benefits from you, don't we even more? Nevertheless, we've not made use of this right. Instead, we endure everything so that we will not hinder the gospel of Christ.

It's amazing. It feels like Paul is making an argument that he's trying to defeat, but he's trying to say both things at once. He understands that he could, by right, according to reason, according to the example of other apostles, as well as according to the law of the Old Testament, according to scriptures, he has every right to ask for financial support. That is his understanding. That's his understanding of how God has designed things to operate.

It's a good thing because he doesn't expect ministers to starve. He expects them to be able to do the work and get paid for us. He understands that God provides for those who do the work of spreading the gospel in this way. And yet, understanding all of that, understanding he has this right, this entitlement, he should have this expectation. He says, I am not going to exercise that right. I am perfectly free to ask it, but I will not, which really begins to beg the question, why?

Why is it that he so clearly understands and feels like God has said this is the way it should be and it's okay, and yet he will not go ahead and do this? Why won't he take money in exchange for what he's doing? And he gives us an answer. He says, so that we will not hinder the gospel of Christ. But what does he mean by that. In what way is that arrangement hindering the gospel of Christ? In what way would his asking for pay hinder the gospel? It's not, I think, because of the culture he's in.

Because in Corinth, it was totally the norm that people, priests of other gods, of false gods, would be expecting something in return for doing the ministry work i don't think it's just a pragmatic reason that he's saying and i think as we go on it becomes clear that it's not the case that it's merely pragmatic there might be a situation where you were in a culture and doing ministry and you know there was just this like skepticism maybe kind

of in like in our culture a skepticism that maybe like people who are religious are trying to do it for their own advantage. And so maybe in that instance, it would be a good reason to back off and just say, you know what, I'll do it totally free. But I don't think that's the reason that Paul is offering here. I think he's saying there's some other benefit beyond just the pragmatic missional aspect of getting the gospel out and taking away barriers to the gospel.

I think he's saying there's something else that matters. So what is it? He goes on, picking up on verse 12. Don't you know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple, and those who serve the altar share in its offerings of the altar. Again, this is the normal practice in the pagan world, so it wouldn't be weird for him to expect financial return. No one would think that was strange. In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should

earn their living by the gospel. He says, this is the way it should work. For my part, I have used none of these rights, nor have I written these things that they may be applied in my case. For it would be better for me to die than for anyone to deprive me of my boast. For if I preach the gospel, I have no reason to boast because I am compelled to preach. And woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this willingly, I have a reward. But if unwillingly, I'm entrusted with a commission.

What then is my reward? To preach the gospel and offer it free of charge and not make full use of my rights in the gospel. Now, I know that this is kind of hard to follow and that's because it's kind of hard to follow, right? Because he seems like he's, it's like a tautological argument. He seems to be making it a circular argument. What is his reason for preaching the gospel? So that he could, and not charging, it's so that he could preach it and not charge.

Oh, okay. I mean, that doesn't really get to a why, does it? But he seems to think that there's reason behind this. Why would he do the work and be entitled to pay but forego his rights? It's because he says here, because it's his reward to do it in that way. As he does it in this way, it's part of his reward. It is his reward to do the work, to be fully owed something, and yet to forego his right to have it, to have the material benefit.

He says, I don't want anyone to deprive me of my boast that I can do this thing. You have to wonder if Paul knew what reward was, because I know what a reward is, right? You know, you do some service and you get some sort of material benefit from it. But Paul seems to think that as I do this, I get something that's different than just a material benefit. So what is that thing? What is that thing? Again, we're just thinking about Paul for a second. We'll think about ourselves in a little bit.

He says this. He continues on this very long, long argument. He says. The law. To the weak, I became weak in order to win the weak. I've become all things to all people so that I may in by every possible means save some. Now I do all of this because of the gospel so that I may share in its blessings. Paul is finally getting to it. He has a reward. It's not the reward of material blessings. His reward is to proclaim the gospel amongst all people.

And instead of taking his share of the offerings, like is the habit amongst other religious people and religious workers of his day, he takes his share in the blessings. I'm going to forgo the financials so that I might enjoy the blessings. See, Paul understood something. He understood that the gospel was just this wild, almost like illogical. It's illogical according to the paradigms that we live in in the world. It was this good news that everybody could have life in Jesus Christ.

That was what he went around proclaiming. And he was bold to be so clear and open about this. Many people did not like that Paul would go out and just say, Jews, Gentiles, that is non-Jews, Romans, pagans, anybody who wants can hear this good news.

God loves you. He's forgiven you. And he invites you into a life with him, not because of anything you've done, not because you deserve it or not because you could earn it, but because he's good and he's faithful and he has secured whatever is needed so that you could have the blessing. And what Paul says is, so I don't wanna take that proclamation of blessing and turn it into material gain.

I want the blessing that I proclaim to all people that God is with men, that he cares about us, that he oversees us, that he knows our needs before we experience them. He knows our anxieties before they fill our heads. He knows the things we're worried about. He knows the things that were in danger of happening to us. He knows all of those before they even occur to us. And he watches out for us.

And so he doesn't want to take his work and turn it into material blessing because he says, because I want to live my life receiving the blessing that I'm proclaiming to all people. I want to live my life open to God's plan, open to his power. I, in fact, want to live as a demonstration of God's grace and kindness. Because he gives some information about what the gospel is. The gospel is the favor of God to all people because of Jesus Christ's work, not our own righteousness.

And so he says, so what I'm gonna do, I consider it my vocation, my goal to just live into that as if it were really true, as if I truly could cast all of my cares upon God and walk around penniless and walk around subject to my enemies. I'm just gonna let God take care of me because that is the blessing of the gospel, that he cares about you, that he hasn't forgotten you, that you don't have to sing for your supper, but you can sit at the table, that he's a God who blesses.

Paul talks about this in his second letter to the Corinthians even further. I think he makes it very clear that this is what he's after in his life. He wants to live in the reality of the gospel. gospel in 2 Corinthians 4, 5 through 6, it says this. You see, we don't go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servant for Jesus' sake.

For God who said, let there be light in the darkness, has made this light shine in our hearts so that we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. The gospel is this good news that God has come down to a dark place. Rebellious, sinful world. And he lets the light of the gospel shine in the hearts of people. He lets people know, I see all you've done. I see that you are a person who's full of shame, that you are ashamed of the

things that you've done. You're ashamed of the way that you've lived. You're stuck in sin. You know, that's a Christian word for the perpetual habit we have to just be selfish, to put ourselves first, to not care about others, to not love God, to not love others. He says, I see that. And in the midst of that kind of world, in the midst of that kind of darkness, in the midst of people who are stuck in that kind of system, I'm just gonna shine light into their hearts.

I'm gonna reveal myself that I love you and I care about you. Not because you've measured up, not because you've performed or earned your way into those blessings, but simply because Jesus Christ has secured those things for all people and simply by faith, we receive those. And so Paul says, that's the gospel that I preach. And so the most effective way for me to proclaim that gospel to people and to live out his purpose is to be a living, breathing example of the power of the gospel.

So that's my blessing. I get to take this to the max, to the extreme. I get to be a person who totally relies on God. And we see him going on in 2 Corinthians 4, 7 about what that looks like. He says this, Now we have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay pots containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God and not ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we're not crushed.

We are perplexed, but not in despair. We're hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down. Thank you. We got to have these songs. They can see the hour get up again. Ah, 90s, the 90s. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed through sufferings. Our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.

Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies.

Paul understands what's at stake in the gospel. He understands what it's about. He understands that the benefit and the joy and the blessing at the heart of the gospel is just this good news. God is making light shine in your hearts in the face of Jesus Christ, that blessing is overflowing from his faithfulness and his righteousness onto you.

You have the favor of God because of what he's done. done and so the relationship is restored and you can live in trust and you can live in faith and you can live in dependence. And so Paul just says, if all that's true about the gospel that I preach, then I have to live as if that were totally true. And so my life, I will subject myself to poverty. And this is not prescriptive. We'll get to the prescription side later. I'm not saying, so go and just rip up your checkbooks. I'm not saying that.

But Paul is just saying, so this is my calling. I have to live according to the truth of the gospel. And I need to be a maximal example of what that would look like. And so I subject myself to persecution. I subject myself to poverty. I don't take material blessings. I let God provide for me day by day. And so if he doesn't show up today, I'm going to have some problems tomorrow and the next day.

He lives a kind of life so that the power of God, the great power of God would be demonstrated that it's not from himself. It's not from his skill of providing for himself, but it's that God cares about him and God watches over him. The fact that he's still alive is a miracle because so many people have tried to kill him so many different times. Now we might say that's foolishness and it would be foolishness if the purpose of your life was just to sustain yourself. self.

But Paul says, I know what my purpose is. It's to live according to the reality of the gospel. It's to live as if it were true that God actually cares about me and that he can provide for me and that I don't need to do this work of managing everything, that he is a much better manager. He's so much better at overseeing my life and the things that I think are important. He's so much better at it. So why don't I let him be the power?

Why don't I let him be the one who sustains me. I'm just going to live that way. Paul wanted to be a living example of the supernatural love of God that he has for people and that it's real. That it's a real thing. Because I think he understood this. I have a point up here. The gospel is not about what you're entitled to. The freedom that you have in Christ is not about what you're entitled to.

It's about what you're invited to and yes that rhymes and yes i'm very proud of it the gospel is not about what you are entitled to it's about what you're invited to no it doesn't quite rhyme does it it almost rhymes that is the nature of the freedom that you have you're free you're loved you're forgiven because of jesus's righteousness and that comes with certain rights certain privileges like you're a child of God. You're loved.

But it also means that all of that stuff, all those entitlements, all of our rights, all this freedom that we have is meant for something else. You're free, you're loved, you're forgiven. But to take those things and forego a life of relationship and dependence and trust and closeness. Paul just says, that's a tragedy. It would be such a shame. Like he says, I'm not gonna do that in any aspect of my life. I'm not going to rely on material stuff in order to secure my future.

He says, I'm just going to realize that I've been invited into a relationship of trust. And so I'm just going to live in that trust. I'm going to expose myself and put myself into a kind of position where I have to have God show up in my life so that I can be a demonstration of his power and the truth of the gospel. Because he understood that it's not just about he's entitled to things. He's not just entitled to material provision. He is invited to rely and depend on God.

Now, here's the thing, and this is not a cop-out. Paul, though he lifted himself up consistently as an example, he wanted to be an example for people. Paul did not expect everyone to be him. He actually really understood. He was pretty unique in his calling. Jesus made that clear. When he called him on the road to Damascus, Jesus said, I'm going to make it clear how much this one has to suffer for my sake.

That's not for everybody. Don't worry. You are not all called, I think, to live exactly the kind of life that Paul lived.

But there are some things that we can learn from Paul that all of us can apply to our lives. that I think we would be fools not to apply to our lives. And it has to do with our freedom. What do we do with it? So, okay, looking past the particularity of Paul's life, yes, he had so much going on, but one thing I think that we can all do is that we can get out of our comfort zone, okay? Like you have a comfort zone. It would have been very comfortable for Paul, right?

To set his life up that he goes, And he preaches the gospel and then he has some money and then he can sustain himself. That would have been really comfortable for him. But what he's saying is, I don't want to do that because he understands that getting too comfortable with like what he's entitled to is not going to lead to the kind of spiritual. Life and joy that he's called to as a Christian. You get that?

He actually further illustrates this in 1 Corinthians 9, 24 through 27, finishing out the chapter. He says, this is kind of the way he puts this language, this idea here. He says, don't you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize. Now, everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. They do not receive a perishable crown. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown.

So I do not run like the one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. Instead, I discipline my body and I bring it under strict control so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified. The challenges to read things like this and keep the gospel clear. Paul was super clear about what the gospel is. Gospel is the free grace and love of Jesus Christ. Like your merit is bought by his performance, not your own.

Paul doesn't question that at any point. He's a totally free person, right? But what he understands that's at stake for Christians, right? For people who have faith that Jesus's righteousness is what gets them to heaven, right? He also understands that what we do with the gospel is going to dictate, not if we get into heaven or not, but it's going to dictate the quality of life we have as Christians.

Like Paul understands that if we don't have this kind of self-control that turns away from self-indulgence, putting like living as if I'm the most important person in the world, says if we don't have the kind of discipline, to temper those behaviors, then we're going to be missing out on the great joy and the great reward of the gospel. And Paul, here's the thing, Paul knew that was true of himself.

And maybe it could be, he said that he knew it was especially true of himself to the point where he does this maximum self-control. He says, I'm going to subject myself to the reality of the gospel to the point where I'm just going to live to these extreme degrees so that I can enjoy the power of God, reliance upon him. The truth, I think what goes on, like when I'm comfortable, when I'm in my comfort zone, I'm just resting on what I'm owed and what I have and what I've secured for myself.

And my desires say, that's good. That's the way you should live your life. Everything within me loves to be comfortable. Every part of me. I love to eat what's comfortable. It's not going very well. I love to sleep when I want to sleep. I love to do what I want to do. I love to order Indian food when I order Indian food. Actually, I'm just really into food. My big thing, I probably have a sin there. I'm just confessing my sin to you. Here we go.

Look it. But what Paul says makes clear is that if we want the crown, if we want the real good stuff of the Christian life, then we need to take seriously our constant tendency to stay comfortable and to live according to our desires, live according to the immediate satisfaction of what I want.

Because if we continue to live that way, then we'll be, or at least he applies this to himself, he would be disqualified. And I don't think he means disqualified, like he's not going to go to heaven or God's going to hate him or it's none of that shame stuff. It's just that he's just not going to enjoy the power of God in his life.

And I don't know about you, but I've lived enough of my life going to church and enjoying it, but not really being satisfied, not really experiencing God's presence in life. And that's because I've spent so much time being comfortable. That's it. It's entirely within my control because the promise of the gospel is that the light has shined into our hearts, that it's there. It's like the sun. It's there. You can close your eyes and you cannot see it, but if you open your eyes, it's there.

And what Paul is saying, if you would just open your eyes and just like kind of not live according to your selfish desires, but instead just live according to the truth of the gospel, you're going to realize, man, God is so faithful. He's good. When I actually put myself in a position where I need to depend on him, he always shows up. It's not like I never have any problems, but he always comforts me.

He always cares for me. He's always working out the challenges that are in front of me in a way that is supernatural and surprising. But I think so many of us are living in our comfort zone so that we can avoid any surprise in our life. And I just don't think, I think we're going to disqualify ourselves from enjoying the good stuff of life. If we don't let God surprise us a little bit, if you provide every one of your needs, if you think that's your job, you probably will do that or maybe not.

And that'll be a surprise, right? But if I organize my life in such a way where I say, God, I think you're real, show up. It's going to be really cool. And then we get to be surprised when he does and get to be reminded about how much he loves us and how much he cares for us. But if we're never outside of our comfort zone, we're never going to be surprised. We're never going to experience his power in our life.

Worship team is going to come up. I just have one final point here, sort of furthering what we're saying here. I think it means this also that we can't live a double life. And I don't mean I'm not accusing you of something very sinister or something like that.

But in the end, Paul recognizes that the challenge that we have is that we have a great calling, we have a great purpose, we have a great invitation to live in trust and faith in Jesus Christ, but we also have this inner tendency, this desire to just be comfortable, to be satisfied.

And I think a lot of us try to kind of manage that tension by living in one sphere when we're at church and maybe when we're praying and we're just kind of like, okay, in that little box, I've compartmentalized things and that's where I trust God. But then what we do is we go into the rest of our life, right? Our work life, our family life, whatever, whatever kind of life it is, there'll be just different compartment of our life. And we live as if God wasn't really a person.

Right? So you have this one thing where you say on one level, oh, Lord, I depend on you. I love you. Like, I want to have faith in you. But then in our day to day, we set things up as if we depend on ourselves and we have faith in ourselves.

And like the problem with that is that as it comes to the spiritual life, like we're going to deny ourselves and rob ourselves of living according according to the things that he's called us to, we're going to be settling for less than what we can have, what we're invited to. And I know, like, so here's the challenge, right? How do you stop? How do you stop doing that? Well, it's, you take steps, you take steps, you take steps in your life to experience the real things.

And I'm, this is it. This is my problem is in kind of like Christian maturity. It's like, I want to go cold turkey on all my sin. You can't. You can't. You're not going to decide one day to stop sinning. You're not going to decide one day to just, I'm going to trust in the Lord every time. It's really funny because growing up, that felt like that was it. Like, if I just needed to make that proclamation forcefully enough at some point, and then it would all be solved, right?

I need to come to the altar again. I need to raise my hand again. I need to do these things. And then finally, my sin issues will be solved. But I think that what Paul is saying here is that actually we get past this double life, this compartmentalized, I say I believe this, but then I live this other way by just slowly, intentionally living out, the implications of our faith.

So again, if it's true that I can trust God with things, then we slowly and intentionally look at this sphere of our life, this kind of place, this secular side of our life and we just say, okay, how do I bring a reliance and faith and dependence on God in these things? So maybe it's a big business decision. Because everything in you is gonna say there's too much risk here to rely on God. I need to rely on myself. I need to ensure all this stuff.

And so like your tendency will be to go to control. Maybe it's dealing with a conflict in your family. Maybe it's dealing with fighting with your spouse. How do you bring faith? How do you live according to faith in those things?

And it's just taking steps. It is getting before God, praying and saying, God, okay, I feel this. I feel the conviction of this. Can you give me more specificity on what the real issue is? And then what steps can you take identifying to take steps, right? To take steps of trusting God.

Romans 14, 7 through 18 says this, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever serves Christ in this way is acceptable to God and receives human approval.

What Paul is saying here in this other book, this other letter to the Romans, is that despite our tendency to think that we're right with God when we obey certain sets of rules, the truth is that our satisfaction in Jesus Christ comes from this righteousness, Consciousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It comes from trusting Him, hoping in Him, living in Him, being surprised by Him, depending upon Him. And I think that, again, this has to be something that we experience.

This has to be something that we step out into. Because the American way is, well, I'll just read my Bible more and I will believe the right things about God. And that's a good first step. up. Believing the right things about God is going to help guide my behaviors. But then I need to go and say, okay, if this is true about God, what does it mean about how I need to act? How I need to live? How do I live according to righteousness? How do I live in peace with God, trusting in Him?

How do I live in this joy of just like experiencing Him, seeing Him show up, like enjoying my life with Him? And so much of it just comes down to these simple things is that we need to start to take apart our dependence upon ourself in this slow and intentional way. And so that's not like, there's no big rah-rah moment here at the end of the sermon. I can't give it to you.

I can just ask you this. I can say, if you want to take some steps, stop and just ask the Lord this question, God, in what ways in my life am I just not trusting in you, but I'm trusting myself? And then ask this follow-up question, what can I do to teach my body and my mind and my whole self to trust you? And then take some action steps. You're not going to think your way out of it. That's what Paul's point about the body is, disciplining the body.

It's because you can know all the right things and yet not do the work. The work of faith is just living as if what God says is true. Walking into the peace, walking into the relationship and enjoying it.

You can take steps and live every day as a disciple. So I want to just encourage you guys in that. Yes, let's worship. Let's worship. I was about to change the plan because I'm the worst, you know. We're going to worship, and we'll keep going to the plan.