1 Corinthians 9 | Pastor Drew

Seated in the house of the Lord today, we are grateful to be here.

If those of you who haven't been here for a while or you're new today, we are working through the whole book of First Corinthians.

And so today we are in First Corinthians chapter nine.

First Corinthians chapter nine.

Last week was chapter eight and talked about freedom last week.

And so this week we will continue to pick up on where we left off.

1 Corinthians chapter 9.

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

If you have your Bibles, feel free to open them up.

And if not, hear the word of the Lord as I read from 1 Corinthians chapter 9.

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

Am I not free?

Am I not an apostle?

Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?

Are you not the result of my work in the Lord?

Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me.

Don't we have the right to food and drink?

Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?

Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right not to not work for a living?

Who serves as a soldier at his own expense?

Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes?

Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk?

Do I say this merely on human authority?

Doesn't the law say the same thing?

For it is written in the law of Moses, do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out of the grain.

Is it about oxen that God is concerned?

Surely he has this for us, doesn't he?

Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest.

If we have some if we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?

If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more?

But we did not use this right.

On the contrary, we put up with everything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.

Don't you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar?

In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

But I have not used any of these rites.

Am I not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me?

For I would rather die than allow anyone to deprive me of this boast.

For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since 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.

What then is my reward?

Just this, that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel.

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a servant or a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.

To the Jews, I became like a Jew to win the Jews.

To those under the law, I became like one under the law, though I myself am not under the law, so as to win those under the law.

To those not having a law, I became, or to those, I'm sorry, to those not having the law, I became like one not having a law, though I am free from God's law, but in but I am under Christ's law, so as to win those not having the law.

To the weak I became weak to win the weak.

I have become all things to all people, so that by all possible means I might save some.

I do all this for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?

Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.

They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

Therefore, I do not run like someone running aimlessly.

I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.

No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Lord, speak to us today.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Paul is talking about multiple things here, but in this, he's really speaking about one thing.

For weeks we've been asking, what are we building with?

And Paul has talked to us about the foundation, the fire, holiness, the body, relationships, freedom, love.

And in chapter 8, Paul told the Corinthians, Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

He challenged the strong to surrender the rights for the sake of the weak.

But now in chapter 9, Paul stops merely just teaching the principle and begins to embody it.

He begins to show now what this love that builds up actually looks like.

He talked about it in chapter 8.

Now he wants to put some flesh and blood on this concept and idea.

So it's just not a good idea out there somewhere, but he wants to remind this church about who what this is about.

It's about becoming shaped by the cross.

You see the cross up there, you see the shape of it, right?

Paul's talking about here about what it means to be shaped by the cross.

The cross is not merely what saves us, it becomes the pattern that forms us.

And so chapter 9 here, Paul, is talking about something, church, that all of us need to understand and grasp and begin to put our own flesh and blood on.

As we follow Paul, who's following Jesus, together we are following Jesus.

And so Paul's addressing something here, church.

He ain't just talking about it.

He wants us to be able to see it, to grasp it, and now live into it.

It's about a cross-shaped life.

A life that does not cling to status.

No, no, no, no, no.

It doesn't cling to rights of a particular group of people, whether it be Jews or Gentiles, rich, poor, black, white, male, female.

It doesn't cling to the rights of a particular people group or ethnic identity.

No, it does not grab a hold of rights to a particular nation or country in the world.

No, no, no, no, no.

It grabs a hold of the cross and it lives out a cross-shaped life.

It doesn't center self-preservation.

It's not trying to win.

It's not trying to preserve itself and to preserve its energy because it doesn't want to sacrifice for other people.

No, this is a different kind of life, church.

And Paul is talking to a church body to do this in the body together.

But this here now becomes free enough to love, serve, and lower itself for the good of others.

Church, by the message or title, it would just be simply the cruciform life.

What does this mean, Pastor?

What does that even mean?

What's that word, that big word?

Let's let's go to the next slide.

Cruciform.

There should be a slide there.

Cruci?

Crucifix, it's about a cross, right?

Cross.

Cruciform shape.

It's the shape of a cross.

It's about how we live our lives following Jesus in this kind of way.

Cruciform.

The cruciform life is a cross-shaped way of living in which we surrender self-centeredness and we follow Jesus in humility, love, service, and faithfulness.

This is the way of Jesus, and if we call ourselves Christians, if we call ourselves followers of Jesus, guess what, church?

Paul is saying, this is your way too.

We don't get out of this.

None of us.

If we do, let's just stop calling ourselves Christians.

Let's call ourselves Wyattans.

Zeboians, right?

Let's let's call ourselves Emilians, right?

Let's just follow after the way of Emily, who's selfish and doesn't care about anybody else and cusses people out all the time.

No, she does not.

I just made that up just now.

I love Emily, so don't treat her that way, right?

Or Chandelians, right?

Let's let's just call our or or just means, let's just call ourselves what it is.

We're gonna be what we want to be, and we want to just bring Jesus along with us, and we want Jesus to bend to our way, but we don't want to bend to Jesus' way.

Well, guess what?

You're not a Christian at that point, you're something else.

But I want to remind you all, too, if you fall short, as I do, Paul is actually talking to Christians.

He's calling them in to remember what it be mean, what it means to be people who follow Jesus, who live a cross-shaped life, who live a cruciform life, not a life built on status, not a life built on having our rights to have our way.

One of the key words that you would have noticed in me reading that would have been the word rights.

Rights, rights, rights, rights, rights.

Over and over again throughout this chapter, you hear the word rights.

Side note, whenever you're reading the Bible and you're reading a chapter or section of scripture, and you see a word introduced or spoken repeatedly over and over again.

If you want to understand what the point of that passage is, it has something to do with that word that's most that's that's that's spoken repeatedly.

Just a Bible study note.

Words that are repeated in the text, they're pretty important to what the author is saying.

So rights are important.

Why?

Because rights have to do with a lot of different things in this culture.

Again, this is a Corinthian culture, right?

And rights are real for everybody.

They had rights.

Guess what?

You got rights, I got white rights.

We got we live in America, baby.

It's all about having our own individual rights and expression of our own freedom, baby, even when it's dysfunctional.

Some of the challenges that we're facing is because everybody wants their own rights, but they don't want the one that is right.

And we're arguing about rights when Paul is doing something different.

So, what are rights?

Next slide.

Rights are a form of power.

Rights are real, but love does not cling to rights.

Paul is saying here in the first 14 verses, he's saying, y'all, uh, have I not seen the Lord?

I am, am I not free?

Matter of fact, this church that he's writing to, he has to write up another letter in 2 Corinthians because they have these people called the super apostles.

They want to, they want to make themselves even greater than Paul, and Paul's not even trying to make himself great.

He's not even trying to make himself great.

He acknowledges something, but he's not using it to step on them.

He wants them to understand something that even me, with all the rights that I have, I do not use my rights in a way to step on people, man.

I don't use my rights to hold grudges or to hold power over people.

I don't use my rights to get my way.

As a matter of fact, I'm relinquishing my rights.

This is the way of Jesus.

He's not pretending that rights are fake.

The cruciform life does not deny that injustice is real.

The cruciform life does not deny that people hurt people.

The cruciform life does not deny or is not about glorifying exploitation.

It's not pretending that abuse is something holy.

Abuse is not holy, it's very unholy.

And so Paul is not saying this.

Paul actually possesses some real authority here, and he actually truly deserves support here.

But the cross is not the absence of power, it's power that is surrendered.

The cross is not about the absence of power, but it's power that is surrendered, surrendered unto Jesus and unto one another for the sake of one another.

Power in itself is not a bad thing.

No, it's good to have power.

We all have some form of power at work or at home, in the world, in our neighborhoods, in our community, in our families.

We all have some form, nobody is 100% completely powerless.

And power is not a bad thing.

Power that's abused and misused is horrible.

But God actually wants to trust us with power, to do the right thing with it, and to love others well, and to honor others well, and not to step on folks.

This is what he's trying to get to, and this is what he wants the Corinthian church to understand.

See, Corinth operated through what's called a uh a patronizing, patronizing uh community or way of thinking.

So in this culture, you had clients and you had patrons.

This was the culture, right?

And you can see some of this in our culture today.

So you had somebody who was a receiver, right?

They were the client, and the patrons were typically wealthy people, and they had status and power in the culture.

So the client had to do things that aligned with the patron that they were receiving benevolence from.

So they had to, if if the if the if they said, hey, you know, you can't say this in public, you know, because you don't want to dishonor me, I'll keep helping you with this.

I'll do it.

And so then the client, they're typically weak, poor, struggling, they don't really have much power, they have some power.

They either agree to it or not.

And so part of the culture is that you want they they patrons expected loyalty in return.

If they helped you, they it was, baby, it wasn't no hand under the table, it was hand on top of the table, baby.

This was the culture, it ain't even no sneaky thing.

No, here, on the table, I'm giving you this, and you're gonna give me this in return.

That was the honor culture that they lived in, and so if somebody helped you, you were entitled to be loyal to them.

See, Paul understood this early on, which is part of the reason why he chose not to take pay from this early church.

He understood that the cultural influence was more powerful in the way they thought than the actual gospel.

And so if he had to take pay, then he had to play their games.

And Paul freed himself by saying, I'm gonna be a tent maker, so I don't have to take your pay, and I'm gonna love you, pastor you, sit with you, listen to you, call you into something more, and you can't stop me because I'm not playing your game.

In our culture today, we've lost our way with this.

This is why much of the American church can't speak out about racism and injustice.

Because the church as a whole has bowed down to a very deformed and particular kind of power that it can't speak out against because if you speak out against it, your funding might get cut.

You might have some wealthy donors in your congregation that you can't challenge with how they treat their workers or their employees or how they treat you.

So you want that big money coming in.

See, Paul understood that the faithfulness of the regular and the common, it don't have to be these big gifts.

It's the faithfulness of the people who show up every day and offer what they can that keeps things going.

Paul understood this, y'all.

Does this make sense?

Think about this in your workplace as some of your bosses, they can't, they know that their bosses or the system or the institution or the workforce is oppressive, but they can't speak out because their job, right?

You can't now they got these organizations, nonprofit organizations, churches are now having people sign NDA, which is non-diclose non-disclosure agreements, to say, if we do this for you, you can never speak out against us publicly.

Church, let me tell you something.

I will not ever in my life sign an NDA.

No matter the cost.

I will not sign one.

Because I want to remain free to the gospel so that it's not a hindrance.

I think part of the challenge in the American church right now with people say, why ain't people speaking out much racism or this classism or elitism or even this Christian nationalism?

Because why?

They've signed an NDA.

If they want to continue to receive the fruit of Babylon and the Empire, they gotta keep signing the NDA.

Church, this is a real thing.

Where have you compromised because you signed an NDA and you didn't realize it?

Now, I'm not telling you to not be faithful with where you're at and to think about this.

No, do that, but also understand why it exists to silence you.

So then the church can't be faithful.

Then you got people on the outside of the church saying, Man, why would I want to be some part of that?

All the poor, all this injustice taking place, the church is quiet or silent, or just wants to focus on thoughts and prayers, or just wants to say America's still good and God's still good in America, and when we see all this oppression, this is the problem, church.

That same spirit exists today.

And so Paul says, nah.

So they expected loyalty and honor and influence and social alignment.

Do you have some alignments?

But Paul refuses to let the gospel become trapped inside elite systems of status and reciprocity.

Paul would rather work with his hands than let the gospel become captive to the interest of elites in power.

Aristocratic culture despise manual labor.

Matter of fact, if you were somebody who had a shovel or if you worked common, he was a tent maker.

They were despised.

So the wealthy despise the people that they helped.

Think about this.

Because they wouldn't do it.

As a matter of fact, the aristocrats are the people who are wealthy, who have money, they have businesses.

They actually despise manual workers.

They would never touch anything.

So think about this.

If any of you in here don't like any manual labor, I want you to know that doesn't come from Jesus.

It comes from the culture.

If you think you're too good to work, guess what?

You've been baptized in the culture that we live in.

Which is very much this Roman culture.

Think about structures and the places, the organization, how it continues to take people away from the ground.

I want to be a pastor who, no matter what I'm doing, I'm still remaining close to people.

I don't ever want to get somewhere up here.

And I hope, church, that we don't become people who ever get over here and we remain detached from our mission.

But we're out here just posting about it on social media.

It's the same idea.

To work with your hands was considered low status.

It was considered weak, unimpressive.

But Paul refuses to build a church through that logic of empire, through that thinking.

He refuses to do the social climbing.

Refuses to play the games, church, because he understands something else.

This matters for us today because we live in these same kinds of systems that are built on.

Let's network.

I can tell you I've done a lot of networking in my life.

And the ones that remain close to me were people who realized that I wanted to be a genuine and authentic person, and I was going to speak truth no matter what.

The ones who got away from me didn't want to do that because it put the light on them.

And I'm always willing to re-engage.

Can you see it in your own life?

You begin to speak truth, people step away.

I can tell you, when we started this church, the idea of diversity was great, but justice was a different conversation.

Diversity is sexy.

It looks good, it's appealing.

But you talk about justice and righteousness and making things right, and all of a sudden, oh, they're political.

Well, Jesus is political.

He doesn't participate in the parties of this world.

But when we talk about politics in terms of how we care for humans, oh baby, Jesus is very political.

He cares a whole lot about humans.

And so branding, status, power, influence, these things live in our systems today.

We care about branding.

Branding is this very popular thing.

And Paul turns branding on his head.

He flips it upside down and says, you know what my branding is?

Following Jesus, which is the way of suffering.

This ain't popular.

But it's faithful.

Next slide.

This word for rights or power, authority, exusia, is an ancient Greek word primarily translated as authority.

Right or delegated power.

It frequently appears in the New Testament over a hundred times to signify the lawful authority to act, jurisdiction or liberty, rather than just a raw strength or ability.

Next slide.

Dunamis is another word as well, but there's a difference.

Right or privilege based on one's position is distinctive from the other word that's used often, dunamis.

Exousia is the right to act.

It's like a police officer's badge.

They can act because it's their right.

Here, dunamis is the act is the ability to act because of your strength, right?

So I want to help you understand the difference between these two words a police officer's badge or a police officer's strength.

There's a difference in how you understand this, right?

And so the gospel cannot belong to the powerful, it must remain free at all costs.

Second point the cruciform life becomes a servant.

I mean, Paul talks about this.

Though I am free from all, I made myself a slave to all.

This is the center of the chapter, church, and it completely redefines freedom.

In the Roman world, freedom meant independence, upward mobility, power over others, or freedom from obligations.

See, some people don't want obligations, some people don't serve because it's an obligation.

Guess what?

You're much more like the Corinthians than you are the Christians.

Because you don't want an obligation.

You don't want to be glued, connected, or this idea of tie down.

Guess what, church?

If we're going to join each other in a yoke, we gotta be connected.

And we gotta be obligated together in what we're doing.

This is not individualism, church.

This is a collective group who are following the same Jesus together.

Amen.

Sometimes churches become more shaped by the empire than the cross.

And these are the challenges.

True freedom is not freedom from people, it is freedom to love people.

Let me say it again.

True freedom is not freedom from people, it's freedom to love people.

Paul, like Jesus, follows the way of Jesus, the cruciform one, the cruciform life.

To the Jews, I became a Jew.

To those under the law, as under the law.

To the weak, I became weak.

To folks, I became folks.

To lords, I became lords.

To bloods, I became bloods.

To Crips, I became Crips.

To rich folks, I began to become rich folks.

I ain't got no money, but I know how they think.

I've been around enough, right?

To poor folks, I grew up poor.

I know how that I become poor to middle class folks, right?

Black folks, it don't matter, right?

The more that you learn the people, you learn the culture.

He's talking about cultural servants, how to lay down our rights to ourselves for the sake of winning people over, right?

That means that we don't always have to be right.

Age demographics, the older, the younger, the middle-aged, I'm coming up on middle age, I'm there, baby, right?

And so I remember the younger mean, I'm learning about what the older means is gonna look like.

I'm just gonna stand on me.

Now you need to stand on Jesus, who lives the cross-shaped life, the cruciform life, so that you might be a shape shifter.

Somebody who's able to navigate.

Black folks, this is uh black folks in the congregation.

Uh we've been doing this a long time.

We've had to do this, right?

We've had to navigate within a predominantly white, culturally dominated country.

Again, we didn't get rights to vote until the 60s.

250 years.

2026 minus 1960s.

How many years is that?

Okay.

Out of 250 years of American history, 190 of those years, black folks haven't been able to vote, to participate in things.

This is why what's going on down south right now.

Keep Memphis on your radar, what's happening in Louisiana?

They're trying to do away by gerrymandering, moving districts.

This is an age-old thing.

Why?

Because they can remove black votes and black voices.

See, this is a term that black folks use, it's called code switching.

It's code switching, right?

This code switching.

Uh, you I'm not a Democrat or Republican, but I think it's important for our church to understand this.

Some people don't like Barack Obama because you don't like black people and you don't want to say that.

Again, I'm not a Democrat or Republican, and I ain't going for either party.

They both got issues.

But some of you just got some implicit bias and historical racism still working through you.

And it's all right, we all got some kind of bias.

Guess what?

It's all of us as humans that have bias.

And so when Barack Obama would talk uh to the to the nation, he's the first black president, the first black anything in leadership just can't mess up.

Can't really do a whole lot of things that would cause people to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's he doing over there?

But hey, nine, you know, can't really, but but you so you gotta weave in this stuff.

I just want to be real with y'all.

I don't want to be a pastor that's over here playing games with y'all, right?

And so because he's the first black, he knows that he's just gotta be safe, just not messed up.

So he talks the way he talks, he's got the education, he's got the acumen, he's he knows what to say, he's precise in what he does.

But then there was something that happened, there was a murder.

And he shows up at a black church, and he's there to grieve with the black church when there's somebody who's been killed, and he begins to sing a hymn.

And then I heard white Christians say, Why can't he just be himself?

Because you don't really want black folks to be fooling on sales, right?

Oh, I gotta cut my hair off.

You don't like dredge, you think dredge is bad.

Who's who gets to say that?

You how do we begin to discern together what's best for all of us, right?

But part of this is when you see Barack Obama doing what he's doing, he ain't thinking about the nation at that time.

The black community needed Barack.

They didn't need President Obama, they needed Barack in that moment, and he spoke the language of black folks and so church.

I want you to understand this.

Women would understand some of this too, women.

We live in a patriarchal system that's dominated by men, white women and black women.

Let's just talk about it.

Let's just talk about it.

And so women have had to also code switch to speak this way around women who understand them.

And then when they get around men, they gotta pike down a little bit.

Kind of be quiet, don't say the words that cause white folk or men in power to flip out, right?

That's where we're at as a nation.

We can't even be human with one another.

We gotta do all of this thoughtfulness, and I can't even be free because you're not ready for me, and you're not ready to offer all that I am in church.

We are not going to be a church like that.

We're gonna be a church that's going to be free, and that doesn't mean we won't make mistakes along the way.

Because all of us are created in the image and likeness of God, and all of us are sinful and prone to go astray.

We gotta hold both of those together when we interact with each other.

So we don't exercise our rights to always be right.

So you know what?

I got some white friends, I got some white family members that say some crazy stuff sometimes.

And you know what I do?

We love them, don't we, Josh?

And then I correct what they said and help them to see in a way so they don't try to do this again because somebody else might not feel the same way I feel.

Now I have all right to go off, maybe slap you outside your head, beat you down.

I have all rights to do that.

But if I'm in Christ, I've laid down my life to do things according to what I want to do or what are my rights for the sake of loving Jesus and actually loving my neighbor, which also includes my enemy.

So church are rights are to be used as a way of serving God and serving other people.

Now, that doesn't that mean we accept abuse and we're exposing ourselves to dysfunction all the time.

Sometimes you just gotta get out of a situation.

They can't hear you.

But Paul does all of these things, he sacrifices, he loves, he does this why?

Because he loves other people and he loves all people, and he desires that all people would be saved by Jesus.

He desires that people everywhere would repent, and because of that, he's willing to sacrifice in order to serve even the people who badmouth him.

If we're gonna be this kind of church, church, we have to take on this same mindset, which is the same mind that's in Christ Jesus.

Jesus did not wait for humanity to climb toward heaven, he came down to us, and if we follow that same Jesus, we're exercising this to and through our local church with each other black, white, brown, Latino, Asian, it don't matter, black, white, don't matter, rich, poor, middle class, educated, people who have masters, doctorates, bachelors, people who have high school diplomas, and maybe not have any of that, right?

And still showing up.

It doesn't matter because the equalizer is Jesus.

And none of us use our rights to exercise power over the other.

The last part is this the cruciform life, it requires discipline and community.

Here.

Should be one more slide there.

Discipline and community.

Here he goes on, he gives us imagery of athletes and runners.

He's a runner, he's a track star, that's what he's talking about, right?

Why?

Because Corinth hosted the Isthmian Games.

These games were like Olympic Games, and so the people understood athletic discipline.

They trained intensely, they denied their appetites, they embraced discomforts, they disciplined their bodies all for a crown that will fade one day.

That's my brother over here, the NBA life is over for him.

He knows that their crown is faded.

He's seeking a different kind of crown.

Your degrees will fade one day.

Your money will fade one day.

The thing that you put your pride in will one day, your parenting, the way you know it, will fade one day if you're a parent.

Place your identity in the only thing that is eternal.

That is the crown of righteousness in Jesus Christ.

But we have to be disciplined.

Paul says, How much more should believers be willing to be formed by the kingdom of God if athletes are willing to do this for a crown that fades, then how much more shall the people of God be willing to discipline themselves in community with one another for a crown that never fades?

This is the kingdom of God.

How much more, church?

We have to commit our lives to discipline with each other.

We can't do this by ourselves.

And this is why some people are struggling because they're still trying to discipline themselves by themselves.

It requires community, it requires you letting other people.

I don't know any team that was really great by everybody doing their own thing.

They discipline together.

That means they had to make themselves uncomfortable together.

They had to deny their appetites, right?

They had to train.

This is church, this is us.

We're only, as Chip says, oftentimes exercising the muscles that we should have already been using as Christians.

He refuses to let desire and comfort, ego, appetite, and status become his master.

The cruciform life trains the body not to dominate others or indulge itself, but to serve Jesus.

This connects everything that Paul has been talking about sexuality, status, freedom, our rights, and our relationships, our holiness.

The issue underneath all of this is what is forming you, what is shaping you.

The truth formed life of Jesus says, My body belongs to Christ.

My desires belong to Christ.

My rights, they belong to Christ.

My future belongs to Christ.

Paul is giving us an example, church.

And I would never ask you to do something that I wouldn't do.

Last Thursday, those of you who are in a marriage group, I'm gonna share this because nobody else is in this.

And this is not to be taken a picture of, this remains here for the purpose of talking about it here.

Last Thursday, I was on my way to marriage group, marriage group, and on my way to marriage group, I got a message from someone that I know and love, and they messaged me and said, Hey, there's some young people over here who are uh over here, you know, being disrespectful of the pavilion, the park that y'all built, and that you need to come down here and handle this.

So I, you know, I'm on my way to I'm I'm I'm just I'm one minute away from my marriage group.

I'm gonna go in there and work, you know, work on something.

U-turn.

Came on back down here, came down and observed the situation.

Show that will you show that first picture?

Next one, there should be another one.

There should be a picture in the truck.

So I pulled up and 14 kids, 14 young people, none of them are part of our church, ever been to our church.

They're hanging out.

Now they was running all over the tables, cussing, all kinds of stuff, right?

You know how it is.

And so I come out, get out, talk to them.

The person comes over and talks, explains the situation, and the situation is getting tense even then.

So the person's like, I'm just gonna get out of here for the sake of not causing any more problems and let you talk to them.

So I talk to them, and before you know it, they they letting they letting up a little bit, they cool.

I say, Hey, this park is here for y'all.

We built this for y'all.

Not looking for any props, but I want you to know that we think about you.

Like, this is why this park exists.

I live in a neighborhood and I benefit from this as well.

But we we were thinking about children and youth and families in our community when we did this.

And so uh we start talking, and they find out I'm a pastor.

And they say, This is a this is a church, yeah, this is a church.

Oh, you're a pastor, yes, yes, yes.

Oh, wow.

So we start talking for a moment, and then we have this thing we're trying to do right now with youth, and we want to hear from youth, we want to listen to them and find out where they're at with God, what causes youth to think about God or want to be formed or want to practice the way of Jesus, right?

I'm 44 years old, I'm not, I'm not 10, I'm not 14, I'm not 16.

I didn't grow up in the area of technology, so there's some things I just don't know.

We gotta ask the youth.

So I asked them in the meantime, I said, Listen, would y'all be willing to help me understand something?

I'd like to know.

Our church is doing this thing.

Would you fill this out for us?

So that's it, it's six questions, 30 seconds.

They filled it out, the questions.

When we got done, one of the young men, he's probably about nine years old, he put his arm around me and said, Thank you.

Now I ain't said nothing to him about Jesus, but he knows I'm a pastor and he knows what the survey just asked.

So I said, Y'all want some pizza?

We'll get some pizza for you too.

Oh, yeah, we'll get some pizza.

So I went and got some pizza and went to the store.

Lil Caesars got some pizza for him, brought the pizza back, got some pop.

I pulled up.

I said, Matter of fact, let's go on inside to the kitchen.

Y'all gonna go to the kitchen?

They said, Yeah, let's go.

So we pulled around to the kitchen.

Now I'm supposed to be a marriage group.

Now, every right, I got every right to say forget them kids.

I'm just saying, Lisa, I can say bump them kids and go into my marriage group.

We went in there and there's a there's a picture right, so go back one.

Go back one.

So we get some pop pizza, we're hanging out, right?

And then they say, Will you show us around the church?

Yeah, I'll show you around the church.

We walk through the church, we come to church, a couple of them play instruments.

Go to the next slide.

Here we go.

Can we turn that up for a second?

Right here.

Next slide.

It's my turn, baby.

By rights, I could have said, bump them kids.

Call the police.

But I tell you, I was one of them kids.

And I remember when people wrote me off.

And I remember when people forgot about me or called the police on me because they didn't understand me, right?

We're living in a new generation, in a new era.

This is CJ, so CJ ends up coming down, and CJ comes and plays basketball with them.

They text me on Saturday, they said, Hey, Pastor Drew, can we come over to the church again?

I said, I couldn't right now.

That I had to honor my rights because my wife, my daughter, and my mother-in-law, we had to go to the movie, so I had to honor them rights that day.

Now, this week might be a different story.

But I say all this, say I'm not.

Church, we have to think differently about our rights.

Paul understood that he had to do the things necessary for people to hear him.

Sometimes we're using tactics and we're using methods and old ways of thinking that the youth cannot hear.

Guess what?

When we were young people, older people did the same thing to us, and they couldn't hear us either.

These kids ain't in church, but they've been to church.

If we're gonna be a faithful church, we gotta let go of our rights to do the right thing.

This requires us to get uncomfortable.

It requires us to be humble and to listen.

And to love and to realize that we're there to serve them.

They're not there to serve us.

We're there to serve them because Christ has already served us.

That is the good news, church.

And with that, the cruciform life does not cling to status or its own rights, its own way, its own preferences, even in the church, cultural preferences, music, order of service.

Sometimes churches have talked about carpet and argued about carpet before.

We're just all looking for our own rights.

That's not the way of Jesus.

We don't build our identity on our power, our status.

It follows Jesus downward, which means we learn how to relinquish our own rights for the sake of others.

So let us become a people who are free enough to serve.

We're humble enough to lower ourselves, not for the sake of lowering ourselves in that moment, but continuing to live a life of lowering ourselves, that we're disciplined enough to even share our lives with others, and even rethink our own disordered appetites, the things that we crave.

And may we be formed enough to embody the Christ, the cross of Christ in our everyday lives.

The world says higher, climb higher, protect yourself, assert your rights, have your way.

But Jesus says, take up your cross, become a servant, and lose your life in order to find it.

That is the cruciform life church.

And I pray that we would be a fruit of what Paul preached about, that our lives would witness to this reality.

Lord, I thank you and love you, God.

I thank you for this time this morning, God.

I thank you for your goodness and your grace.

And I pray right now, God, that each and every one of us would observe our lives and identify the places where we are protecting our own rights or asserting our rights.

And because we're doing that, other people can't hear us.

We are a stumbling block to other people who you desire to come to know you because we can't get out of the way.

And so right now, God, in this church body, it's discipline, but it's also in community.

I ask right now that each and every one of us would share one way that we're doing this.

How are we still asserting our own rights?

One way.

Share it with your neighbor right now.