All right, I know some of you are excited about your stash of additions to your wardrobe or other sundries. It's good to see you. It's Friday. Happy Pi Day. Today we have some people who are going to face the pie. Maybe have a pie in the face, so to speak. So we will take great joy in that. However, our I don't think we need to have a safety seminar about not injuring anyone with a weapon of the pie toss. Toss, but don't pitch. You know, 70 mile per hour flying pies are not good. It's not baseball, it is pies. So we don't want to have any, it would be embarrassing to be injured by the pie. So let's not have that. But, let's prepare our hearts to worship the Lord before we have the pious celebration this afternoon. So, our hymn this afternoon will be 448. After that, the students will lead us in the pledges, and we will go where we're going from there. I think you need to stretch your legs a little bit, so stand up to sing, Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end. We tried to sing thinking about these words of dedication. I promise to serve thee to the end. Be thou forever near me, my master and my friend. 448 in your hands. ♪ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪ I see the skies at my lips, the clear, deep sounds I hear. I know it shall never be, nor will I ever dare, but Jesus, Lord, I'll be. ♪ As it is today ♪ ♪ Above the springs of passion ♪ ♪ The rivers of salvation ♪ ♪ The spirit of redemption ♪ ♪ And praise the Lord one more ♪ Oh Jesus help us promise to love only Thee ♪ And Jesus I have promised eternity in the end ♪ ♪ O give me grace to follow my master and my friend ♪ ♪ O let me see my father again ♪ ♪ Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ Stay standing as the student leader comes and leads us in the pledges. All right, student leaders. You have stood, so? Let's do it for 2 o'clock. I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the State of the United States. One Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all to be. Let's sing the Bible. I pledge allegiance to the Bible, the Gospel, and the Word. I will make it a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. I will bide its words in my heart, and let not my tongue speak against God. Let's say this first. In Hebrews 6.19, we have this hope, and it's a maker for the soul. All hope goes to Jeremiah, as it said it best. In Hebrews 6.19. Let's say this first. SDS exists to glorify God in all that we think, all that we say, and all that we do. I believe that the inspiration of the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, the creation of man by the direct act of God, the incarnation and the virgin birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the identification of His Son of God, His vicarious atonement for the sins of mankind by the shedding of His blood upon us, the resurrection of His body from the tomb, His power to save men from sin, the new birth through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of eternal life by the grace of God. Thank you. This week we have had two universities visit us. One from the East Coast, one from the West Coast. Both of these universities are trying to engage you, thinking about what you should do when you graduate from NCS. What should you be? What should you study? Most of you, once you graduate, are expecting to go on to university. I think that's the path that most of you have ahead of you. I think all of us have a desire, wherever we go or whatever we do, to be a success. Whether it's to be a success as a businessman, a success in nursing, a success as a teacher, a success, however the Lord guides you and directs you, we want, all of us want, to be successful. I want to be successful as a teacher when I teach my classes. I want to be successful for the Lord when I serve Him, whatever I do in service to Him. Have you ever thought about what does it take for me as a Christian to be a success? What does it take for me at the end of my days To hear Jesus Christ say, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord. You heard different universities' prime directives and mission statements. We've just recited the mission statement that we exist and we should be striving to glorify God in all we think, say, and do. What does that mean? What does it look like? What kind of person do you have to be to be a successful Christian to get a crown at the end? And as we're once again in 1 Corinthians, I want to look at some marks of Christian success. By most marks, I think all of us here would say the Apostle Paul was a pretty successful Christian. He was a servant who gave himself wholly, zealously to doing God's will. And yet, in 1 Corinthians, he says, you know what? I haven't arrived. I'm not there. I'm still disciplining myself to win the race God has put me in. You know, some of us have been Christians since elementary school, some of us have been Christians for decades, but none of us are where we want to be. We're all on a journey towards greater Christ-likeness, to have more of the mind of Christ, to glorify God in all we think, say, God's still working on each of us. I'm not saying I'm a success. I fail far too often. I sin far too often. But my desire, and I hope your desire, is to be a success for the Lord. Not to get a bunch of money. That's not success. It may be a blessing, but it's not success. So we're in 1 Corinthians 9 once again, and we're going to pick up in verse 17. And we're going to start by reading verses 17 through 23, so go ahead and turn in your Bibles. This time I'm not going to put it on the screen, so you actually need to crack open your Bibles. 1 Corinthians chapter 9, we're going to start down there in verse 17. And then we'll finish the chapter, and then we'll pick up later on. All right? 1 Corinthians chapter 9, picking up in verse 17, and carrying on through the end of the chapter. Everyone yet? Hear that welcoming sound of angels coming. All right, so there we are. 1 Corinthians 9, verse 17. Here the Apostle Paul begins by speaking of sharing the gospel. What if I do this willingly, sharing the gospel? I have a reward. But if against my will I have been entrusted with a stewardship, what is my reward then? That when I preach the gospel, I may present the gospel of Christ without charge, that I may not abuse my authority in the gospel. For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more. And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win the Jews. To those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law. To those who are without law, as those without law, not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ, that I might win those without the law. Now write verse 22 as you're reading along. To the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." Verse 23, Now this I do for the gospel sake, that I may be a partaker of it, that I may receive this with you. Verse 24, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but One receives the prize. Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown. But we for an imperishable, another one's one that doesn't die, an imperishable crown, verse 26, therefore I run thus. not with uncertainty. Thus I fight for a box, not as one who beats the air. Beating the air doesn't do much. Verse 27. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I preach to others, I myself should become disqualified. May none of us, by God's grace, ever Our Father in heaven, we delight to call ourselves children of God. As we have sung together this afternoon, we have sung about how the Lord Jesus Christ, our God, is our master and our friend. That you are the one who guides us and directs us. And Lord, we look to you for wisdom, for help, for strength, Lord, without you, we can do nothing. But Lord, we long, we greatly desire to be a success. A success not in the sight of men and women, but a success in your sight. Father, I pray that as we spend time together this afternoon, that you would help us to take stock. Lord, are we who we need to be in order to be successful Christians? Examine us. Search us. Know us. See if there is any wicked way within us. See if there is rebellion, or the racer's desire to win. Lord, make us Christian winners, that we might buy our lives for our Father, your Son. In Jesus' name we pray. So what is a winning calculus for the Christian? What is it that adds up to success? I had to get the math illusions in there for hiding it, alright? What is it that adds up for success for a Christian? As we look at this chapter, in chapter 10, and a little bit in chapter 11, we see some vital ingredients for a Christian who is a child of God, who is an ambassador for the kingdom of heaven to earn favor, to earn the well done, to win the prize. And I'm missing all kinds of metaphors here. You see, there is a Christian path to success. There is a way to please God. God has given us direction in his word as to what displeases him, what disqualifies us in the race of life, and what things are able to help us to earn. Well done. What things it is in our lives that glorify God. You see, our school verse, the mission statement, comes from chapter 10. Now I'm going to go ahead and drop down to 1 Corinthians 10 and really get to the great objective, the finish line, the prize, the crown. And so if we come down to verse 31, in 1 Corinthians 10 31, it says, therefore, whether you eat, or whether you drink, or whatever you do, do, terrible three letter word, A-L-L, do all to the glory of God. And this is explained a little bit further. Verse 32, give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the Church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own benefit, but the profit of many that they may be saved. So, chapter 11, verse 1, imitate me, Paul says, just as I also imitate you. Who does Paul imitate? Christ. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. And so verse 2 says, 1st Corinthians 11 2, Now I praise you, brother, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions. In other words, you're trying to keep the scriptures. You keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you. And so we're looking at the Christian path to success this afternoon. We see that The success, the mark of success, is glorifying God in all we think, say, and do. Or, as 1 Corinthians 10.31 says, the success, the goal, the bullseye, is to glorify God. And the way to get there is our lives. The things we do, the people we are, is what should glorify God. Now that can include all kinds of things. From eating to drinking to whatsoever you do. It is all to the purpose to glorify your Father who is in heaven. Everything is about glorifying God. Everything. Do you believe that? More importantly, do you live that? Is it all about Christ? Is it all about glorifying Him, or is it all about me? What makes me happy? Why do you do what you do? Are you doing it to be the good son or the good daughter? To make mom and dad proud? There's nothing wrong with being good, making your parents proud. But as your ultimate objective, the overarching reason you do it, to glorify God. To hear him say, I'm proud. I'm pleased. Enter into the joy of God. And so as we look on Here in 1 Corinthians 9-11, 9-17-11-2, that's the text for today. 1 Corinthians 9-17-11-2. We see that the purpose, the goal, is to glorify God. Success, then, is pleasing God. How? By winning souls. That was what we looked at last week. Alright? Every Christian is called to obey the Great Commission. The Great Commission is to go into all the world and make disciples. No one's exempt. You don't get medical leave. You don't get some kind of handicap to keep you from doing this. Every Christian, if you believe in Christ, should be sharing Christ. By your words, your actions, and your testimony, you are called to be, by all means, to save some. And so success is pleasing God by winning souls, by gaining eternal reward, seeking to gain eternal reward, and we're avoiding sin. That's chapter 10. And we are also being a blessing, not only by snatching people in pity from sin and the grave, from hell, but we are also trying to be a blessing to God's people. God has called his people to be his people, which means we are the church, we are the gathered one, we are the body of Christ. And so all of this means So, the goal here is glorifying God, 1 Corinthians 10.31-11.2. How do we do that? Well, you saw that in the thesis statement. We see that a soul winner is going to glorify God by being zealous, sold out to win the loss. Notice the word win in verses 17-24. Paul says, I want to win more. Now that's not more trophies, although it is the trophy of the soul, right? I want to win more. More what? More people. More souls to Christ. I want to win more. More what? I want to win Jews. I want to win those under the law, 20b. I want to win those under the law. I want to win the weak. I want to be all things to all men, so that I may, by all means, any means, every means, save some. Because giving the gospel means giving the gospel to every single person, but not every single person who will be Jesus Christ. Notice, from all to some. That's a reality check. We want everyone to believe in God, not all will. Only those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be in God forever. Amen. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one has to follow Him but Him. And so if we have any concern for humanity, any concern for our neighbor, any concern for someone that we care for or love or have any interest at all in, our primary concern for them is, will they be with me, with Jesus, in heaven or hell? And so Paul says for the Jews, I act like a Jew for those of you, and we talked about this last week. I'm going to do everything necessary to get the gospel, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to every creature on this planet. Because without Christ, they're going to a priceless eternity. That is uber important. That's why we call it the Great. Great. And so the soul winner is willing to sacrifice his comfort, to sacrifice his resources, to sacrifice his time, to sacrifice what is necessary. to gain the relationship, to bring that person with you to Christ. Remember, four men had a heavy burden. They had this layabout. Spent all his time on a mat, doing nothing. It was like that. And they cared about him. Because they cared about him because they didn't want him to stay paralyzed they picked him up And they couldn't get access to the emergency room And so they went up on the roof and And they broke a hole in the roof and they lowered that man down. And Jesus said to them, today your sins are forgiven. That was pretty inconvenient. I wonder if the homeowner billed them for the repair of the roof that day. It was inconvenient, it was time-consuming, it was out of their way. They had to force their way to Jesus, but they were going to do it because they cared for their friend. What would you give up to see your brother, your sister, your loved one in heaven? Paul was willing to sacrifice a lot. We saw that last week. Christian winners seek to win souls. Have you made any effort to win anyone to Jesus? False saying, I want to win all. Have you made any effort to win each? Family, friends, neighbors, friends, teammates, classmates? As we continue on in chapter 9, verses 24-27, we see that Paul looked at himself like that. Talked about that boxer, boxing the air. He's not going to box the air. That doesn't...just makes a breeze. That's pointless. But what does he say here? A Christian winner is going to discipline himself. And so the Christian winner, not only win sold, the Christian winner will discipline themselves. That's what we see here in verses 24-27. And so he says, don't you know those who run in a race all run? But there's one winner. There's one that gets the gold prize. Or in this time, that crown made the leaves that would perish. I mean, these people were exercising, having special diets, doing all the rest. I heard about someone who's trying to raise funds. So he's doing three triathlons to raise money for students. I look at him and say, you're crazy. Right? He disciplines. He's turning 40, so he wouldn't. Anyway. This athletes do crazy things, but they have a purpose. The goal is to be the winner, to be the best, to be supreme at that sport. A racer wants to be in first place. A boxer wants to knock down the opponent. Now we, as Christian athletes, do want to do well. We do want to succeed. And sometimes we compete with one another. Yet we are on the same team. So that means if I am going to compete in the race of life, in the Christian race, If I'm going to tear down Rachel to get ahead of her, that's not good. That's not going to mean the first prize. It's a team sport. We are a church. We are a body. There is unity here. But we know that the first disciples were competitors, too, were they not? James and John, let me sit on the left hand of Christ, the right hand of Christ. And Jesus actually gives a method to succeed, right? Be the greatest servant, right? There is such a thing as a holy ambition that is right and proper. Now, what I want you to see is Christian winners discipline themselves. You know, there, in America, there's a slogan that, you know, everyone's heard, even most of us disagree with. That slogan is what? My body, my choice. What Paul says is not, my body, my choice. He says, my body, my slave. Because he is going to discipline himself. Look at verse 27 here. I discipline my body and bring it to subjection. Another version says slavery. I make my body my slave. Why? Because I don't want to be disciplined. Lest, when I preach to others, I might sound cheap and disrespectful. His goal is to win. And he's been telling all these people how to win. He's been saving the loss. He has been, he has said he wants to be a partaker, verse 23 of the gospel. In other words, the good news, he wants to have the good news applied to himself. He wants to be saved. And so he is doing everything he can to be a success in winning souls. And he says, as I do this, as I'm winning souls, as I'm serving my God, as I'm Going for that ultimate goal, glorifying God, that's the finish line, that's surprise. If I'm going for this, what I'm going to do is I'm going to keep my body under control. I'm going to discipline myself. Athletes discipline themselves in their diet, their exercise, their sleep, and much more. How do we exercise ourselves? How do we discipline ourselves to do right and not just what we feel like? You know, athletes have taste buds. I'm sure that athletes, some athletes really have, you know, sweet tooth, sweet teeth. They like certain foods, but they don't eat them for the sake of their health. There may be days when they don't want to get up before dawn or whenever they get up to do their exercise for that day. Their regimen. You know, most of us, you know, if we have devotions in the morning, you know, how many of us have more of a meeting with our pillow than with God? You know, it's fine, not all of us are morning, you know, some of us have that in the evening or whatever, but we need time with God. Do we prioritize that? Do we make that a big deal? Do we set that time aside? And the discipline of prayer, Bible reading, fellowship with God, fellowship with God's people, or is it, you know, I'll get to church and I don't have anything heavy. Now this self-discipline means not only does he do things, he avoids these disqualifiers, as verse 27 says. Well, what are some of those disqualifiers he avoids? We talked about this last week. We saw, chapter 10, verse 7, the disqualifier of idolatry, worshipping other gods. So we saw that in the Old Testament, the people of Israel, some of them worshipped other gods and suffered for it, rightly so. So do not become idolaters, as were some of them. We can disqualify ourselves by immorality, any kind of impurity or sex outside of marriage. Chapter 10 verse 8 says this was something people disqualified themselves by. Don't do this. Nor let us commit sexual immorality as some of these people did. Chapter 10. Thirdly, there were those, verse 9, who tried God, who tested Him. Others spent their time complaining. The murmur generation, right? Chapter 10 verse 10. These are things that we must avoid. God expects his people to be thankful, to be content, to be pure, to worship himself alone. And so how do we avoid the disqualifiers? Well, we're in a race, so run. Run from sin. Flee, flee iniquity. Chapter 10, verse 12, look here. Got your Bibles open? Chapter 10, verse 12, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. You say, Pastor Brian, come on. You know, I'm not out there doing the Buddha thing. I'm not out there doing the immorality thing. You know, I may not, you know, I try not to complain too much. But you're saying I'm okay Maybe by if you think you're standing okay self-assessment is good, but beware be proud But remember we're searching We'll face the things that everyone else So we we all face these temptations verse 13 says but God is So turn your eyes from the temptation to God, and what do we see? God is faithful, and what does God do? Who will not, with the temptation, allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will, with the temptation, make a way to escape, so you can get away. Remember I said this is a race? Here you run away from that temptation, and this is a race God will help you to win. To flee, to run away from sin, that's a race you've got to win. Don't let Satan as a lion sneak up on you and go and catch you. Be on the run away from temptation. Don't just sleep through it, right? If you sleep through temptation, you'll fall to it and the lion will kill you. You'll be lamb chops. Now that we see that there are rules to run by in chapter 10, the Lord is clear that We avoid temptation. We avoid the disqualifying sins. We see that Israel had all these wonderful blessings. They went with Moses through the Red Sea. They experienced all this goodness and grace from God. They had the rock, Jesus Christ. They had the law. So don't be disqualified. Run by the rules. and run with the team. And what we see here in chapter 10, verses 13 through 30, once again, we're dealing with the church and the poor. And there were some Christians who could trip. And if we become trippers, we're in trouble. If we become people who hurt other Christians or cause them to sin, we're in trouble. And so what we see here in verse 27, if you go out to dinner, don't eat. Eat whatever's put in front of you. Don't make an issue of it for conscience's sake. If someone says that was all for titles, don't eat it. Why? Because that person is worried about it. And it might be sin for them too. So for their sake, it's better to skip the steak. as much as I love Steve, right? So even things like this. And so what we see is that we're on the same team. We're eating the same bread, which is Jesus Christ. That's chapter 11 in the libertarian. But we want, imitate Paul, as he imitates Christ. Imitate your teachers and one another, as they imitate Christ. Be someone people can look to and say, I follow her, and she follows Christ. That's a success, to be an example for ourselves. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you that we can be successful Christians. Help us to be so. In Jesus' name, amen.