Turn, if you would, over to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. And we're going to get started by beginning in verse 13 of chapter 9, and I'm going to read down to about verse 18. Do you not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple, and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so, hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. But I have used none of these things, neither have I written these things that it should be so done unto me. For it were better for me to die than that any man should make my glory void. For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of. For necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward. But if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me. What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel. Let's pray. Father, I want to thank you for this time together. I want to thank you, Lord, for your blessings upon our lives. Lord, we thank you for the time of fellowship that we had around your table today. May we remember as we go into this afternoon service that it was because of all that Jesus Christ has done for us on our behalf that enabled us to be able to do that. Lord, may we continue to be mindful of that as we go through this passage this afternoon. That is all because of Christ, which makes it possible for us to be here this evening. Lord, to hear from your word, to be able to look into the things of God, and Lord, how thankful we are for that. We thank you for the wonderful life that we have in Christ and help us, Lord, to cherish it as we should. And Lord, help me to, Lord, be pleasing with the things that I say this afternoon, Lord, as we look to continue our study in this letter of Paul to the Corinthian church, Lord, and thank you for the blessings of having it available to us to study. It's in Christ's name that I pray, amen. Now, just a quick review, Chapter 8, Paul's been dealing with the matter of liberty for three chapters here, or chapters as we reckon them to be in our translation. But in Chapter 8, he explains liberty. In Chapter 9, he illustrates liberty, and that's what we're in the middle of. And in Chapter 10, we're going to see how he applies liberty when we get to that chapter. And in Chapter 9, I've really chosen, or you can choose to divide it into three parts, and that's what I believe Paul has done. First, he establishes rites in the first part of this particular chapter to minister to his ministry as an apostle. And then he explains to the believers at Corinth, excuse me, and all the believers their responsibilities related to their participation in the ministry. And then the third part is he illustrates how liberty works by using himself as the example related to his established rights as a minister of the gospel, which is the part that we're working through this, or continuing to work through this afternoon. And there's really an if-then statement here, considering those three components. If the first two things were not true, in other words, if Paul had no rights to expect to be supported in his ministry and the congregation itself had no obligation or responsibility to support those minister ministering unto him or who he was ministering to, excuse me, then there really wouldn't be any point in him going on and illustrating how he forsook his rights when he was ministering. So his illustration wouldn't hold water, but it does because both of the first two parts are true. So in verse 15, we come to that And there's a conjunction there in the English language, it says, but. And he says, but I have used none of these things, neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me, for it were better for me to die than that any man should make my glorying void. Now, he's transitioning us from the section where he was asserting his rights and explaining the responsibilities to now He's going to illustrate, hey, this is how I exercise my liberty in light of my rights. And there's three segments of that verse that I'm going to look at. The first one is, but I have used none of these things. Now, the none there refers back to the previous things that he set up as the premise for why he had a right to be paid in the obligation from the congregation itself. For example, one of the reasons was it was a common expectation among all mankind in general that any person who was performing a duty or a job was expected to be able to make a living at their vocation, and we talked about that. Then there was the fact that he pointed out was in accordance to Jewish law. that he be supported, and then the third part was that he could reasonably be expected to receive support in the same manner as somebody who planted a vineyard or somebody who shepherded a flock could be expected to be supported from those two endeavors. And then the fourth thing was that he could reasonably expect to be paid like other ministers that this church had supported, and they had supported church, ministers other than Paul. And then he refers to the fact that it's Jewish tradition to support those in the ministry, which is where we picked up our reading before we transitioned over. But he says, he said, none of these reasons have I used as a reason to be paid for ministering unto you. I haven't gone back and said, hey, look, I'm explaining the reasons I could be supported and I can make my case. But I've never come back to you and said, hey, this is the reason you should be supporting me. I'm just simply telling you what your obligation is. Now, you got to remember, he's talking to an immature group of people who thought ministry was a free gift. What responsibility do I have? Now, do we find that sometimes believers are immature in this way? That they think that coming to faith in Christ is a free gift in the sense that that means all I have to do is wait around. I don't really have any obligations. I don't have any responsibilities by being in Christ. I live my life, I die, and I go into heaven, and I'm going to be welcomed with open arms by Jesus because Jesus only puts responsibilities upon elders. He only puts responsibilities upon church leaders. He doesn't put any responsibilities upon those in the body of Christ. Well, this is something they need to understand, and he's subtly telling them this, by the way. As members of this congregation, you have to realize you have a responsibility, and I say that, probably I'm preaching to the choir right now, but there's a lot of believers that don't think this way. They think, well I don't have to really belong to a church, I don't have to have any responsibilities, I'm saved, that's all I am. Like a fire escape. There used to be a church over, and Tim will remember this probably, over in his neighborhood, my former neighborhood, and it was called the fire escape. And the premise was, come in here and we'll tell you about Jesus and you'll escape hell. Well that's not the primary reason that God brings us into redemption in Christ. If you study the fullness of the scriptures so there is a responsibility and we'll talk about that as we move through this passage but anyway the second segment of this verse is this Paul didn't write any of these words, he tells them, in order that you should start paying me. That's not some kind of a subtle mind game that Paul was trying to get him to understand, like, oh, shucks, y'all don't really have to pay me. You know, that's not what he's doing. He's not trying to use reverse psychology. He's just telling them that he was absolutely not attempting to guilt trip them, into supporting him. What he was doing, as I explained just now a few seconds ago, was he's putting expectations or letting them know there's expectations on God's people. Why do churches close their doors? Well, because all the pastors are bad pastors. No, the people are inattentive. You know, and I've shared this and I won't repeat it, but I was in one circumstance where I had to get up in front of a congregation that was flying under the banner of a church, and I will say they didn't want to be a church. It was very clear they didn't want any response. And it was like, I stood up and said, now I just want to be clear here. You're telling me you don't want to take on any personal responsibility. And I'm summarizing what I said to them. And they were like, yeah, that's pretty much. We don't mind if y'all come in and help us, but we don't want to take on any personal responsibility. And I told them, I said, this is really not how this works. You know that. And I told them just like that. And they were like, oh. And it was just like they were utterly clueless. Now, what does that tell me about that particular group of people gathered together that maybe there was a lot deeper problem going on there than what you could overcome? And we cordially parted company. It was a grievous time in my life to have to deal with that. I promise you I will never go through that again. Never. 100% sure I'm never going to go through that again. If God's people aren't interested in meeting and supporting the church, I'm going to go somewhere where people are interested in meeting and supporting God's work. That's just the way it is. Because God's working in my life, and He's always worked in my life, and I'm not a church hopper. I told you that last time. I've been in two churches. I've been a member of two churches, so I'm not ready. But if anything like that was ever to happen, I know that's going to be the case. So we have to realize, the congregation always has to realize, there's a responsibility, and in part, this is what He's helping them to grow through. And, you know, not trying to be, use guilt here. Guilt can be a good motivator, I think, in a short term. But over a long haul, you're not going to be guilted into serving God and be very useful or effective. Does anybody want to take a guess or answer the question, what do you think is the number one motivator for you to serve God? Paul nailed it. Love. Why do people who serve God serve God? Well, they love God. And why do they love God or why do we love God? Because he what? He first loved us. I'm going to confess and we're going to see in just a minute. Paul's going to even say, hey, I didn't start out this by loving God. I started out because he loved me, and we'll get to that as we move further along. So love is the motivator, and you fear God, and after you love God, or you're brought to love God by God, you begin to have a reverential fear of God because you love him, not because it's a respectful relationship that you want to maintain. And I don't know about you, but God has been so good to me. I don't think there's anybody that God has ever been better. I don't care if you had the Apostle Paul up here next to me. I would just sit there and say, OK, maybe we're in a tie. But but but he has not been better to you than he has been to me for a number of reasons, because, you know, you see the outward, but I know the inward and I know who I am before God. And who am I? but he equally sent Jesus to die for me as he did for the Apostle Paul. Same would apply to you who are in Christ. That's a great encouragement to me. And God demonstrates his love toward me in a continual fashion. He does to everybody who he knows. And that's the great thing about knowing the Lord. But anyway, moving on. So love is the motivator, not the guilt here. And Paul is not trying to motivate people by guilting them into paying him. He continues in the third segment of the verse and it says this, it says, for it would be better for me to die than that any man should make my glorying void. And what Paul means there is it'd be better for him to be dead than for someone to believe that the only reason he ministered was for financial reasons. That's what he's saying. The new American standard says this, it says, but I've used none of these things and I've not written these things so that it will be done so in my case, for it would be better for me to die than that no one shall make my boast an empty one. Now I use that word boast there instead of glorying so we could understand it. We shouldn't interpret the fact that Paul is saying he is glorying, as it says in the King James, and he's boasting, as he says in the New American Standard. We shouldn't interpret his words to mean that he was being prideful in a self-centered, arrogant manner. This is not a case of like, look, you guys got to realize I'm a great guy. I'm glad I showed up to preach to you. I'm a fantastic minister of the Word of God. I don't know what God was doing. What could God do without me? He's not saying that at all. He's not saying, no wonder he came and got me because I was so multi-talented. It's incredible. I had ten doctorates, as often times we like to boast about the Apostle Paul. That's not why God went to get him, okay? God was preparing him ahead of time in a preordained fashion to go into ministry. That's why Paul had ten doctorates. He got ten doctorates before he came to the Lord because God was preparing him to serve His purposes. I don't mean Paul's purposes, God's purposes. The things that happened in our lives to get us to the point prior to salvation were still all things that God had for us. to be ready to serve him when we did submit ourselves to him and begin to serve him in a willing fashion. So everything here, he's not being prideful. He's really expressing humility regarding his personal estate, which was one of the great blessings equal to that of being paid for his service. Certainly ministering without being paid is different, and it is, it's different. I even had an opportunity not so long ago to ask a pastor who was a full-time minister who had retired from that full-time ministry and was helping another church as a third elder who had to work a job in order to support himself. I had a good conversation with him. It was very encouraging to me to hear that perspective of somebody because he was a little bit older than I was, but he wasn't a lot older than I was. And it was a good encouragement for me to have that context with that individual who had come from those two different angles in reverse order, so to speak, of what my experience was. But ministering without being paid is different from ministering with pay, but it's nonetheless equally a blessing. Pastor Bledsoe does not walk out of the pulpit feeling satisfied and fulfilled with what he accomplishes in his work through preaching the word of God any more so or less so than Eddie and I do. Now we may feel like we don't get the point across. I'm not saying that, but there's still a satisfaction with being able to walk out of the pulpit and be able to know, hey, I think I rightly divided the word of God to the best of my abilities at this point in time. So there is a great reward for that. And it's equally glorifying, and it's equally glorifying for all parties. It's not really important whether you pay the person who is ministering the Word of God or not. It's the Word of God that's ministered. It's the Word of God that does the work, not the person ministering the Word of God. And so we have to understand that. And where have we heard something parallel to this? Well, in 1 Corinthians 7, If you remember, Paul taught about marriage there, and there were two states that you could be in. You could be married, or you could be unmarried, and you could serve God in either one. And at no point did he mean to infer that one was a superior state to the other. He did define that one had advantages that the other one didn't, and vice versa. So you could do either or. And that's kind of where the same premise, the same kind of foundational principle applies here, is being a full-time paid minister a fulfilling blessed way of life that is pleasing to God? Yes, it is, or it can be. Is the same true of not being paid? Yes, it is, it can be. So either or. Is a minister obligated to maintain either one of these conditions? throughout the course of his life, or can he switch? Yeah, he can switch between the two, just like I illustrated with my conversation. Does that give any weight, any more weight to the Word of God? No, not one way or the other here. That's not what Paul's trying to accomplish. He's trying to talk about the ministry and having the ability to be able to minister the Word of God. Now we find out in verse 16, that regardless of whether you're paid in the ministry or you're not paid, there is one thing that both states have in common. For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. Now the commonality there is you don't have an option if you're supposed to be preaching the gospel. You're supposed to be preaching the gospel. You're supposed to be doing the work of the ministry. So that's the key thing here, is now how did he go from stating in verse 15 that he had something to glory about, because it's the same word that he uses in verse 16, to saying I have nothing to glory of. Now I will say, when I first came to faith in Christ and I was more extremely unfamiliar with the word of God than I am today, let's put it that way. that I used to get confused by things like this. You're reading, he's glorying about it, and then the next phrase he says he's not glorying about it. Well, is he got some kind of schizophrenic personality here? He's either doing one or the other. And the answer is he's not doing that. He's saying in this particular verse that part of the reason that the phraseology here, I should say, means that he understands the gospel was not his. The gospel is not pastors, it's not mine, it's not Eddie's, it's not John MacArthur's, it's not the Apostle Paul's. The Apostle Paul didn't sit there and say, you know, I've got this great scheme, fellas, let's get together and we're gonna make up this thing called the gospel. And here's what the tenants of the gospel are gonna be and then we'll all go out and we'll start this club called Apostles and then we'll spread it out to elders and it'll catch on like wildfire. Now, false religions do this, but they have to ride up on the backbone of truth, which is how the church is set up. But in reality, that's not what happened, is it? Where did the gospel come from? From the mind of God. So this is what he was, all he was saying is, it's not my gospel. I didn't come up with this scheme or this way of doing things. And regardless of anyone's preaching skills, actual or perceived, Paul was saying here, he preached under divine compulsion. I have to do this because this is what God has preordained that I should do. Now, if anybody is ever, shouldn't be confused about being in the ministry, it should be the Apostle Paul. You know, oftentimes, I used to struggle with this. How do you know you're supposed to be involved in the ministry? You're supposed to preach the word of God. And I used to joke to myself in my brain, and that's okay, that it seemed like some men would come along like God, and sometimes they made it sound, well, God spoke to me and said this. And I was sitting there thinking, well, God's never spoken to me directly. But in the case of the Apostle Paul, did God directly speak to the Apostle Paul? So if there's one guy that should never have been in the history of all preaching, it should not be confused about whether he should be in the ministry or not. It should at least be the Apostle Paul. And he was not confused, was he? He was not confused at all. So he was under divine compulsion. And if you read the account of his conversion, you would see that on the road to Damascus. And you can hardly say, yeah, but didn't Paul volunteer to do this? No, he didn't do it. He didn't struggle over it. God did what he did and put him in the ministry. Galatians chapter one verse 15, he said he was separated and serving the Lord from his mother's womb. He wrote that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He understood that he had a divine obligation to preach and there were other places that he made that case. So what was in to me if I preach not the gospel? And then he talks about the fact because he says, whoa, that severe chastening reserved for unfaithful ministers. Now were there ever time when there were good men that were in the ministry that did bad things and did not follow up the way God wanted them to? Well, two that jumped readily to my mind as I was doing this study was Moses. And Moses did not go willingly into the leadership role that God wanted him to go into. If you remember, he was making all sorts of excuses about, well, I don't speak very well. And it says there, and interestingly enough, I discovered this as I was making a note this morning, which it pertains to 1 Corinthians 13, verse four. It said God's nose basically burned toward Moses. He was angry. Whereas if you go to 1 Corinthians 13 verse 4 and it says love is long-suffering, that is the opposite of that. It means that you're very long-nosed, meaning that you're very calm. Even though you're angry, you're kind of like, breathe in and breathe out. That's that long-nosed is what it means. So there was a tie-in to those two that God was angry with Moses for hedging about going and doing his work. And he told him, hey, you got your brother-in-law Aaron. He's the guy that can speak. And the other case was Jonah. And you may say, well, didn't Jonah get swallowed up by a big fish because it was a reward for his faithfulness unto God, and God thought it'd be a really fun way to get him to his next stop? No, that's not what happened. Read the story, and you'll find out he didn't get there by being faithful. He was a reluctant guy, and that was some of the chastening he had to undergo in order to fulfill his duties. There is a chastening from God upon the ministers that if God has ordained that you should do the work, that you don't perform it in a preordained appointed manner. And that doesn't just stop with pastors, does it? It goes to everybody. It's all of God's people, and we'll get to that in just a little bit. I won't get too much more in it, but I want you to think about that. Why is it that some believers always seem to be chastened? You know, you don't have any reason to believe they're not believers, but they always seem to be chasing. It's always there in their black cloud. Man, this isn't going my way. If you serve God, is every step of the way misery and hardship and heartache? There's certainly that. I'm not denying that whatsoever. And that sometimes comes through tribulation and persecution and things of that nature. But I can tell you right now, serving the Lord from the Lord's side of the equation has never been a burdensome or hard thing to do. Other than the weight of it and thinking about that and my miserable, frail, situations in individual, but God has always been very supportive in it. He's always wanted to help me get to where I need to be. He wants me to become like Christ. That's his intention. So it's very cooperative. But sometimes people are going along like they're just in pure misery when it comes to doing what God wants them to do. And so that's that woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. But what it doesn't say here in this verse, though, is woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel, even at my personal expense of supporting myself and a wife and family at the same time, if that's necessary. That's not what the verse says. That's not what the verse implies. So going back to what we're talking about, the woe is unto him if he doesn't do it. The woe is not because he is obligated in order to do it that he must always support himself. He's doing it out of his liberty. And that's what we got to keep in mind. So it's not out of necessity he's doing it. He's doing it out of liberty. So in verse 17, he continues. that it is not his will that has anything to do with him being in the ministry, and I've already explained that a bit, but it has everything to do with God's sovereign will that he's in the ministry. He says, for if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward, but if it's against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me." And again, that goes back to the responsibility of the stewardship he's been given. In 1 Corinthians 4, verses 1 and 2, he says, let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that a man be found faithful. So there it is, he's a steward, he has a responsibility in order to serve God in the capacity in order to be faithful. So the responsibility of the minister is to preach God's truth while at the same time the responsibility of those being ministered to is to financially support those as I've already made the point. But being a member or any member of the body of Christ is a participatory role. And I wish I could get that across to everybody. One of the reasons that I have or I am compelled at times not to go in the ministry full-time is it is possible that you can hold a responsibility in a church and still work a full-time job. Now, you may have to work around a lot of things, but people will tell me all the times, you just don't understand, brother, I got children. It's like, oh, well, what do you think that individual is back there? And I've got two more elsewhere. I've had three at times in the household at times to take care of. Well, you just don't understand. I've got to work a lot of hours. And I understand that part. I'm very compassionate on that part that you can't always be right at the same time we're meeting necessarily. But come on, man. Eventually, you know, I've changed careers in order to pursue a relationship with the Lord. My intention was not to work at a trucking company. My intention was to work at an airline and to fly them because that became disruptive. And I saw that early on, I changed careers. So come on, what are you talking about? Well, you just don't understand. I'm so busy at work. Well, what do you do? Well, I'm not making fun. I'm trying to be careful here. I have to take out the trash twice a week where I work. And it's like, okay, well, I run a department with 40 people in it, and we're up 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I could pick up my phone right now, and there's about 10 guys I could call, and they would answer my phone right now because they'd be ready to work. One of them's on duty right now, and we're always working. There's a lot of responsibility. There's all types of things. I don't usually get up here and say anything, but when it comes up, boy, you're busy. Yeah, I can relate to that. We're busy. We're the people that keep all the freight flowing practically in the system at the company I work for, which moves a lot of freight. We're the fifth largest transportation company in the world as far as capitalization and whatnot. So there's a lot going on there. I get you're busy. But I still have to participate in this body. And I want to do that, what? Faithfully. This is the whole point. And this is what Paul's saying in this passage is that he's faithful. And we go back to Ephesians chapter 2. Verses 8 through 10 it says, for a gracer you save through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, and this is verse 10, and a lot of times we like to leave out verse 10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. That's all of us. Isn't that a great encouragement to you to know that is mundane as your work, and my earthly work is mundane as anybody's, okay? So let's bring it back. It is important in one sense to get your job done. You know, people would not eat if we didn't have transportation moving the food around, okay? And all sorts of things. But we have other work that's more important. And what work is more important than the work you do in the kingdom of heaven? Can you name it for me? You can't. And this is the whole point, but it's to everybody. What's your ordained work? And what Paul's trying to do as he's walking through the responsibilities here is subtly, he's also trying to help these immature people, these immature believers, to realize that they have a role to do. Because sometimes, even though we're in Christ, are we sinlessly perfected immediately? No. We all have trouble. we all have struggles. It's obvious from the study that we've done that these folks are struggling, okay, that they're not maturing the way they should in their faith. They had a lot of problems, they had a lot of advantages, as we talked about, but what Paul is doing is he's lovingly coming along, he's saying, hey, I'm going to tell you why I'm demonstrating liberality toward you as my Corinthian brethren, why I'm not expecting you to pay me. why I'm sitting here ministering to you. What is my reward then? He says in verse 18, he says, verily that when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel. And again, he's not saying that he shouldn't be paid, that that's a better state to be in. He's just simply saying that nobody can accuse me of abusing my power as a minister if you're not paying me to do it. You know, I'm here trying to help you as your brother in Christ. I'm trying to help you to grow and to change and become like Christ, to mature, to get through this whole thing where you're tolerating sin in your congregation. To get through this thing where when you come to the Lord's Supper, you're divided. This church was in a mess, was it not? And so he's trying to help them. And he's trying to get him to understand that because the prerequisite to this was that he wanted them to repent of their fleshly ways. And for time's sake, I won't take us back to first Corinthians chapter three, but he did tell him that he couldn't speak unto him as spiritual, could he? He had to speak to them as fleshly individuals. And sometimes I think that's where we're satisfied with talking to one another. I don't mind talking to you on a fleshly level about fleshly things, but I get a little uncomfortable about trying to talk to you on spiritual matters on a spiritual level. And so we'll let certain people who have convinced us they're more overwhelmed, that there are temptations that are not common to man. And you've run across this with people. You know, I'm always mindful of when somebody tells me what they're going through, that there's always other people going through it, or I've been through it myself. There is no temptation taking you, but such is what. Common to man, so you're not unusual. I'm not unusual in what I have to face in life. I'm not special in that sense. Well, this is one thing God's never encountered before. No, God knows exactly your mankind. So what then was Paul's reward for his self-denial, his voluntary suppression of his rights? Well, there was much. He had a valuable stewardship from God, which I've already touched upon. And he was able to make the gospel available free of charge. And again, he was no hireling, was he? He was somebody who was willing to do the work regardless of whether he got paid or not. And I will leave off here and Ben and Wendy will enjoy my explanation of what a profession is. Even though I'm in business and I have a business management degree or you have something else, guess what? None of us are professionals in that sense. There's only three professions originally, and this is a historic fact. There is one, and I'm only going to go through them in a particular order. One is medicine. If you're a doctor, you have a profession. If you're a lawyer, is the second one, you're in a profession. If you're a minister, you're in the third one, it's a profession. Originally, those three things were considered professions. And the reason they were considered professions is exactly what it sounds like, because all three of those individuals professed to be something that was more than a vocation. It was something that they would do paid or unpaid. And so if it was for the doctor, the doctor would be willing to go out, and whether you were sick or not, he didn't show up and say, hey, are you going to be able to pay me, Paul, if I fix your broken leg? The doctor felt so compelled to want to help that person in their condition, and he had the giftedness to do it that the doctor was willing to do it for free, whether he got paid or not. Watch Little House on the Prairie and watch Doc Baker get paid in chickens and that explains what I'm talking about and that's why that is a storyline is because that's a truth that was existent in society. The second one is the lawyer. You can't have a, as much as we may have some reservations about lawyers and what all they can foul up and they can foul up quite a bit, but society could not exist without laws. And there was no condemnation for being a lawyer. It was the lawyers, the way they handled the law was what the condemnation was over. But there were lawyers in the day of Christ so that the society could understand how they needed to function. And without lawyers, we couldn't have a society. That's why until recent years, lawyers couldn't do what? Does anybody remember? Advertise. They could not advertise. Because guess what they were? Professionals. And it's the same premise. If you go to a court of law and you can't afford a lawyer, who's going to appoint one for you? Somebody is going to appoint one because you need what? A lawyer. And the third thing you need is you need a minister of the word of God. And that's the third point of the profession. And whether it's paid or unpaid, that person who's going to minister the Word of God is going to do what? He's going to minister the Word of God whether he gets paid or not. He's going to come up and if he sees Paul instead of having a broken leg, he's got a broken life and he needs to know Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior. He's not going to sit there and say, Paul, if you'll give me $25, I'll give you something that's invaluable in exchange. That's not what's going to happen. He's going to minister the truth to Paul because that's what he's compelled to do by the reason He's a profession, he's made a profession that he's more than just what his vocation is. And so, but Paul is not the great example of that. Jesus Christ, our Savior, is the greatest example of that. I'm gonna read a passage of scripture that talks about how Christ surrendered his rights and exercised his liberty toward others that we might prosper through his sacrifice. Philippians 2, five through nine says this, let this mind be in you. which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. So in other words, he's saying he had every right that God had rights to. And he didn't think it was robbery for him to think that way. But there's another conjunction, made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant that he was made in the likeness of men and being found in the fashion as a man, he humbled himself and he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name." Now that is the person we're following right there. Not the Apostle Paul, although we can follow Paul as he follows Christ, but ultimately it's the person of Jesus Christ, the example that he set, that we're following after. And there's nobody who gave up more rights than Jesus Christ to serve other people, is there? Nobody. The Apostle Paul, yes, he had to make the case for his rights, but Jesus was God. He had every right that he wanted to have, and yet he surrendered some of them so that he might be able to serve us. Isn't that a great example we have? And our brother, our eldest brother, I will put it that way, our Savior, Jesus Christ. And that should be what motivates us to serve God, is the love of God and the example of Jesus Christ. And certainly, I'm not belittling the example of the Apostle Paul, but nobody had to chase Jesus down on the road to Damascus and force him to go into the ministry. He did it willingly. Paul and the rest of us have to be forced into it, but not Jesus. Jesus is the greatest and the highest, and I'm so thankful for my salvation through him and that it's in him. Because I sure wouldn't want it to be in me. That would not be good enough. I would not want it to be in the Apostle Paul even. I'm glad it's in Christ. So let's pray and we'll be dismissed. Father, I want to thank you for your son. I want to thank you for all that he means to us, Lord, even beyond our ability to acknowledge it or comprehend it. And as we've finished out this day where we shared in the Lord's Supper, we were able to, again, commute around that table only because of one person, and that person is Jesus Christ. And Lord, may we be thankful for that as we go from this place. And Lord, as we were called upon at that time to remember that, to remember all that Jesus has done for us as we go through this week, Help us to be provoked to think about that. Help us to be motivated by that. And Lord, help us to be pleasing unto you, to glorify you in all that we say and do. It's in Christ