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Go ahead and look first at 1 Corinthians 9 . See how God speaks to you individually. Then come back, if you wish, and see what God has put in my mind/heart.

Key Verse(s): 1 Corinthians 9:16-17

Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me.

Title: A Preacher by Trade or a Preacher by Conviction?

Observation: Paul is making a defense of the pastoral calling, suggesting that as churches grow up like a vineyard grows, the vinedresser has every right to take a living from the fruit of the vineyard that he has cultivated. That’s seems straight forward. Paul’s twist is that he then says that he will not take support from this church, even though he has every right to do so. He implies that the reason he won’t take financial support for them is that it would compromise his ministry… and he is out to be totally productive. He then switches the metaphor to say that he is in training like an Olympic athlete, out to win and not to come in second place.

Too often we think of the church and our walk with Christ as a static world; we try to keep our churches running and rebuild the walls of our life that have been damaged by sin. Paul interjects movement to this image of the vineyard. Our goal is not merely to sit and fight our internal temptations, keep our church alive, and to passively enjoy that which God has given us. We are to run, to struggle, to keep moving especially when our spiritual lungs hurt, so that we might live our life as a race run for others.

But our competition is not another person that we want to outshine from the secular world, nor is it even another Christian that we want to keep up with. Our competition is between ourselves and the person that God called into existence to love and serve Him. God wants us to use our energy, creativity, and skills not merely to build a life for ourselves and our families, but to offer all of these things as gifts of worship to Him.

Application: I have been called and gifted by God- I need to not merely be adequate at leading the church, I need to use my energy and creativity, at the impulse of God’s love, to the limit of my ability to serve God. In my family as well. I have been lacking energy in the last few days as it seems the days of crisis at church are over for the present- but just surviving isn’t why God has called me here. It’s to lead with every scrap of ability and courage that God has given me to serve and lead others to lose our lives in service to the community in order to find the life Jesus has for us.

Prayer: Lord, these thoughts and words are scary and energizing. Help me not to be afraid and to work both in and out of crisis mode. Help me not to compete with others, but rather to run in order to condition myself to become the person that you have called me to be. Help me to not squander my time on the unimportant, but to be alive to your leadership in my life and to be totally present in reading Barn Dance with Josiah. Lord thank you for your goodness and your redeeming love.

In Jesus Name,
Amen.