For the Sake of The Gospel - 1 Corinthians 9:1-18

Sure, think with me for a moment in your own life. Have there been things that you had the right to do, that you could do, but you decided not to do those things for a bigger purpose, or to take care of someone? I know as a parent, there's oftentimes when you would think, maybe we could go on this vacation. We have a right to go on vacation, but you're thinking, I got other expenses for my kids that I need to deal with. And so you don't go on the vacation or you don't get the little nicer car than you have a right to. You have the finance, but you're going to spend it elsewhere. There's always times in life where we may have that decision to make that I could do this thing. But is it the thing I should be doing in this circumstance, in this situation, given a greater mission that you're thinking about in your life? Paul is encountering that same situation. We've been working through 1st Corinthians here in Northland Church. And we are now at 1st Corinthians 9. So if you have your Bibles, you can turn there. Paul began in chapter 8 last week talking about a situation in the city of Corinth about eating meat that was sacrificed to idols, which is a situation that no one in this room is encountering in 2026 more than likely that you are going to ask. What does the Bible say about me eating meat sacrifice to idols because you're not showing up in an idol temple and you're not eating meat. Corinth though had this issue in the 1st century. There were people who had become followers of Christ who had come out of the pagan religions in Corinth. They would have gone to the temples in Corinth, and part of their religious practice was to slaughter animals, and then they would eat those animals in the temple as part of their worship. When Paul showed up in Corinth, he taught them a thing which was, there's only one God. All the gods you've thought you've been worshiping Zeus and Apollos and all these, they're not real gods. And so there is nothing there as far as them being real. And he said that God is comfortable. God's okay with you eating, you know meat. And even meat that have been sacrificed to these gods, because they're not gods at all. So some in Corinth, the church would become believers, had said, well, we can do this. Paul said it's okay to eat this meat. There were others, though, in the church who, because they were so connected to their past, and when they would go to the temple and they had eaten, they said, I'm worshiping, I just, I think it's wrong. Like for me, it's wrong to do. And so there was this tension in the church of Corinth. And there was one group saying, we have the right to do it, so we're going to do it. there was another group saying, I think it's wrong, but maybe I'll do it because these other people who says it's okay to do are doing it. And Paul writes to them last chapter and says, look, guys, if me eating meat that's okay for me to eat, causes one of the followers of Christ to actually go do something he thinks is wrong. I just won't eat meat anymore. I have the right to do it, but I'm not going to do it for the sake of that other person. Now, we're going to continue this kind of idea for the next several weeks because Paul is having a long argument with the Corinthians over this, saying you need to think about others in what you're doing, even when you have the right to do that thing. In chapter 9, Paul uses himself as an example of how he has a right to something. In this case, it's compensation for the work he has done at the church in Corinth. He has a right to that he's going to show, but he says, I'm not going to use that right because using it may cause an obstacle in Corinth to the gospel being proclaimed. And so he says, I'm free in regards to this. It's something I have a right to, but I'm not going to do it. As we listen to this message. Again, like last week, you're not sitting here going, I have a pressing issue about eating meat sacrifice to idol. No one showed up at church today, I don't think, going. I need an answer to this question. Can I go to the idol temple and need meat. And none of you showed up. Maybe a few of you. We have interns and other things in our program who wanted to go into ministry, thinking about, Do I get paid to serve in the church or not? Most of you didn't show up with that. And so we're going to really push to say, how do we take Paul's argument here and then apply it into our lives? Most like we did last week. The main idea I want you to take away from this message is this. Be willing to sacrifice your rights for the sake of the gospel. Be willing to sacrifice your rights for the sake of the gospel. We see this last week. If you look back in chapter 8, just at verses 12 and 13. Paul wrote this as he was kind of winding up his argument about eating meat sacrifice to idols, which is going to pick up again in chapter 10. He says this. If I ate meat sacrificed to idols, and it cost someone who thought it was wrong to do that, to go, well, Paul's doing it, I guess I'll do it also, even though I think it's wrong, it must be okay. That person then feels guilty, because they did something wrong, because they were thinking, I think it's wrong to do this. He says, thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. Now again, Paul said, I have the right to eat this meat. It's not wrong to eat the meat. But I'm not gonna do it if it causes someone to stumble. So then Paul begins in chapter 9 with really 3 arguments that we want to see. One, he defends that he is an apostle. He then defends that he has a right to compensation for the work he's done at Corinth, and then he 3rd says, but I'm not going to use that right, so that the gospel can be proclaimed more effectively in that setting. So let's look at this 1st one. First Corinthians 9, one, and 2. Paul defends his apostleship to the gospel. This is important for Paul's argument. An apostle in the Bible is a person that Jesus commissioned to be his official spokesman to send out the message to the church. So those who are with Jesus originally, if you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, these stories about Jesus, he had 12 men that he picked and said, okay, you're my inner group. One of those Judas betrayed him. They then replaced him in Acts chapter one with someone else. And in Acts 9, we see Paul gets commissioned also by Jesus. And so Paul's an apostle. It means he's a spokesperson for Jesus. So that when he speaks, God is saying, I'm speaking through Paul. It's why when you pick up your Bible in the New Testament, we read letters from Paul because Paul had the authority of Jesus to speak. Well, in Corinth, the church that he had planted. He spent about 18 months in the city, and everyone who was saved when he was there, began this church that he's now writing a letter back to. He started that church. And some in the church are questioning if Paul is actually an apostle. And so he's going to defend his position as an apostle, so he can then defend this right he has as an apostle. He says, am I not free? is the 1st question he asks. I think he's asking this because having said, look, if eating meat sacrificed to idols causes my brother to stumble, I just won't eat meat anymore. And someone says, well, then you're not free, Paul, you're trapped. You're just back into the law and following this person who is not willing to do something that Jesus said, you are okay to do. And Paul said, no, I am free. You can look down to verse 19 where he says, for though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. So Paul especially says, I'm free in Christ to eat this meat if I want to. Jesus hasn't said it's wrong to do that. He says, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to take my freedom to do it and not use it so I could care for others. So he starts with, am I not free? And the answer is, of course, I'm free. Second, says, am I not an apostle? And the answer he's writing is like, of course I'm an apostle. He says, have I not seen Jesus our Lord? If you go read Acts chapter 9? Paul, before he became a follower of Christ, actually persecuted Christians murdered Christians. And he was on his way to Damascus to capture Christians, and Jesus met him on the road, and he met Jesus in person, and Jesus said, I have a job for you, Paul. You're going to be my follower and you're going to spread the gospel among all the Gentiles, those who weren't Jewish. And so Paul said, have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Of course he had. He says, are you not my workmanship in the Lord? Here he says, church, the Corinthian church, you're here. I'm writing you a letter because I showed up and through miracles and telling you the gospel. You became followers of Christ. Your existence is evidence of who I am. and the authority that Christ had given Paul. It says, if to others I am not an apostle, there were some that always question Paul's apostleship, because he wasn't part of that original group that was with Jesus for 3 years when he was on the earth. Paul even mentioned this at times. He says, look, I was chosen by Jesus kind of out of order, but he chose me. And Peter and James and John, the guys who were with Jesus originally, also endorsed Paul and said, yep, he's one of us. He's part of our apostle group. He says, to others, I may not be an apostle, but at least I am to you. You are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. In the ancient world of seal. You would have a scroll, you would roll it up, and the way you would make sure the person who got it newest from you, you would seal it with wax, and you would put your seal on it, and you would send it off. And if they saw that, they would know, I know this came from this person. I know it's from them. And so Paul's saying, you know I'm from God because your existence is evidence. He does this. He defends his apostleship because he's then going to shift in the next set of verses, 3 to 14, that Paul defends his right to support from the gospel. So he says, I'm an apostle to the gospel. This good news that Jesus died and rose again to save us. And I have a right to financial support from working for Christ in this area. Here's what he says. He says, this is my defense to those who examine me. Those who are questioning Paul, and if he's valid or not. He says, do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Paul asked 2 things that he says, of course we have this right. The 1st is to eat and drink. He's not just talking about randomly, do I not have the right to actually eat food and consume food? He's talking about, do I not have the right to support that would allow me to eat? Do we not have a right to take along a wife? As the other apostles do, as Peter does, that's Cephas. Paul was single, but he said, I have the right to be married. I would have the right to bring my wife on my missionary trips that I'm taking, and to be able to support her through the work that he's doing when he gets there. He says, the other apostles are doing this, do we not have that right? Of course we do. But then he goes on and says this, or is it only Barnabas and I, who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Now, Barnabas was one of Paul's early missionary partners. They went out and traveled the Mediterranean, spreading the good news of Jesus in different cities and starting churches in those cities. So he says, is it only Barnes and I that don't have a right to refrain from working for a living? If you're like me, the 1st time you read that, what you probably heard was Paul saying, hey, why can't Barnabas and I just lay around all day? Why do we have to actually work for a living? Why do I got to go out and have a job and get paid? Why can't I just, you know, sit on the couch, catch up on stranger things all day? Is a lot of seasons, a lot of episodes, play video games? I just don't want to have to work. I just want to enjoy and do what I want to do. That's not what Paul means by working for a living. What he means is I have to have a day job, kind of a another job that I do. Paul is a tent maker, a pretty grueling job to make tents. You would take the hides of animals, get them ready, and then turn them into tents. When he was in Corinth, he worked with Priscilla and Aquila, this believing couple that lived there. He stayed at their place and made tents with them because they were in the same profession. So when Paul talks about working for a living, he's not saying, don't have a right not to work at all, I should just be able to lay around and do nothing. He's talking about having basically a full-time job and then also doing the ministry at the church. We know this is true. I'll give you 3 verses where Paul talks about his work schedule. He says in 1st Thessalonians he's writing to this church that was planted in a city called Thessalonica. He says, for you remember, brothers, our labor and toil. We worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaim to you the gospel of God. He wrote them another letter, and he said this, we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But with toil and labor, we work night and day to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. Later in the letter to the Corinthians that we're reading through now, he says, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, talking about the other people who were serving Christ, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Paul worked really hard. He kept a full-time day job. And then he also did all the ministry for the church and he said, I work day and night. What that probably looked like was all day he worked in his regular job, and then late into the night, he did things for the church. I think this is one of the reasons why Paul commended being single. He said, if I wasn't single, this knew I could do this because I would have all the family responsibilities, but I work during the day and then I come and help the church at night and on the days that I'm off. So he says, I was just working constantly. So Paul's not saying when I have, we have the right to refrain from working for a living. He says, do I not have the right to not have this tent making job? And he says, of course I have that right, not to have that job. He then gives some examples from everyday life about what he means by this. He says this. Verse 7. Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? And all of us in here would go, well, no one, we pay soldiers to go do the things we want a soldier to do, or who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? So you go out and plant something in a field, and you plant that in the hopes that you're going to get some of the produce for yourself. Now you'll sell some of it and do other things with it. But there's a point where if you have a vineyard, you get to go around and use some of the grapes. You get some of the grapes. It just common sense, right? And then he says another one. And who tends to flock without getting some of the milk. Who's watching all the sheep? and doesn't get some of the milk from them. He says, this is obvious kind of everyday stuff that everyone in Corinth, everyone in this room would probably agree with, yeah, if you're doing a job, that job helps kind of supply you. Now, we just live in an economy where we just get paid, right? You just get a paycheck and they put money in your bank and you do the job. Most of us aren't in a profession where we do a thing, and the thing itself is we then take some of it home with us and go, you know what? I'm working with sheep, and I take some of the sheep home with me, and that's how I get fed, and their culture, a lot of people, that was their paycheck. And it was like, I work with chickens and I take a few chickens home with me. And that's how I get paid. And Paul's just saying, this is common everyday since. But he moves on from that to even ground it deeper in that God set up a structure where someone should be paid for the thing they do. He says, do I say these things on human authority? So just common sense everyday thought? He says, does not the law say the same? Now, when Paul mentions the law, he's talking about the Old Testament. In this case, he's in the book of Deuteronomy that Moses wrote. The 5th book of the Bible. For it is written in the law of Moses. If you want that verse, it's Deuteronomy 254. It says it's written to the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain. What would happen in the ancient world, the way they would get grain is after they harvested everything, they would do one or 2 things. They would put it in a grinding mill, which would be 2 massive stones, and you would put the grain inside, lower the stone, and then an oxen would walk around and make this top stone move, and it would separate the chaff in the wheat. And the wheat would fall out. And Moses saying, while the ox is doing that work, don't put a muzzle on it. Why would you muzzle it so it doesn't eat anything that's coming out? He says, let them eat. As the ox is working, let the ox eat. The other way they would do is just have animals walk over the grain and break it up. He says, while they're doing that, don't muzzle that animal. While they're working, let them benefit from the work that they're doing. And so the ox would be able to eat while he's doing that. So Paul says, that's in the law. He says, does he not certainly speak for our sake? Pauline, God's saying more than just what's good for an animal. It is written for our sake because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher, thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. So he says, God gave this command for this oxen, but obviously, it would mean the same for a human. that if a human's working, he should be able to benefit from the work that he's doing. Get some compensation for. So Paul's just using common sense says, if we have sown spiritual things among you. So now Paul talks to the Corinthians. Is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more. So Paul makes it very clear, he says, I have a right to compensation. Now, what we're going to find as we think to what Paul had going on in Corinth. And this is where we don't have as much information as we would like. I think Paul has 2 issues happening in Corinth behind the scenes that we don't get explicitly stated. One is, in Corinth, they lived in a culture that was a, what was called a patronage culture. And what that meant was wealthy people were patrons, and they would hire and pay people as their clients. And when they did that, they expected their client to basically work for them and do what they said. And so you would hire an artist, and that artist is now beholden to you, and chose loyalty to you, and is committed to you as a patron. The closest we get in our culture, probably to that, is just our political system, where you would say, here's a person who is, a sponsor of a politician, and if he gives enough money for the campaign, that politician has some sense to go, I have to make sure my donors are pleased. And if you have one big donor, he can control that politician and we worry about that a lot in our political system. And in Corinth, that was the culture. And there was a sense where probably some in the Corinthian church who lived in the wealthiest stratosphere of society, and there were some in the church that way, thought, Paul, we're going to pay you, and by paying you, we tell you what to do. We control the message that you're giving. And if we don't like your message, you change your message. And Paul says, I'm not going to be holding anyone for that. The other situation in Corinth that probably existed was, there were some saying, Paul, you're just in this for the money. You're just here sharing the gospel for the money and it's all one big hustle that you're doing. And Paul says, no, that's not true. He's showing that it's acceptable from God's word for someone to be paid for serving God in that capacity. And he's saying there are some in Corinth, though, who probably thought, Paul, you're just trying to hustle us. And so the gospel is now being compromised. He says, nevertheless, we have not made use of this right. But we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. So Paul says, I haven't taken any money from you, Corinthians, although I have a right to. That's his argument. Because by taking money, it may put an obstacle in the way. That could be one of 2 obstacles. One is, you think you can tell me kind of what to say about the gospel. You've paid me, so you get to dictate kind of what I say. And if you don't like what I'm saying, you're going to make me be quiet, or if you pay me someone, a lot of people may think you're just in it for the money. And Paul's saying, neither of those are true, but as he's in Corinth, he says, I'm not going to take any payment. I haven't taken any payment. And then he says, gives 2 more examples from the Old Testament of people being paid for the work they do. He says, do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service, get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar, share in the sacrificial offerings in the same way? The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. So Paul goes to a situation that would have existed in Jerusalem at the time, where the temple was, the Jewish temple. If you were a priest in that time, you would work in the temple, full-time job, and most of your job consisted of taking the sacrifices that others were bringing. There would be animal sacrifices and plant sacrifices like grain offerings, and you would administrate those sacrifices the way the Old Testament told you to do. Part of that would be involved in, you would sacrifice an animal. So if Justin brought an animal to the temple, and I was a priest, I would sacrifice it, we would cook it. He would eat a portion of it and worship to God. We would burn a portion to God, and then the priest would eat a portion. And so the priests in the temple, they didn't get paid in cash. It went like, hey, you work today, here's your money. It was, here are the offerings that were brought, you get a piece of that. You get a portion of that. And Paul says, look, this is going on. This has been going on for 1000s of years in the temple. This is how God operates. He also says, this is what Jesus commanded. In Luke chapter 10. Jesus sent out his disciples to go tell all the cities in Israel that he was here. They needed to repent and get ready for the kingdom of God. And when he sent them out on this journey, he says this, go your way, behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves, carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, 1st say, peace be to this house. And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you, and remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. So there was this short time when Jesus was with his disciples. He sent them out and said, go into all these cities. When you go there, find a house that will accept you, and what they provide, just take that. Don't take, like, you know, a bunch of money with you to make sure you can cover your expenses. He says, the laborer is worthy of his wages. So Paul speaks to the Old Testament to say, hey, this is how the priests were paid. This is kind of expected from God. And also, this is what Jesus himself said. So Paul's arguing. He has a right to compensation from the Corinthian church, but he doesn't take it. What Paul says in verses 15 to 19 is this. Paul defends his freedom to sacrifice his right to support for the sake of the gospel. He says, I have a right to it, but I also have the freedom not to take it. The Corinthians, in a sense, don't have the freedom not to offer it, but he has the freedom to go, I'm not going to take that. I'm not going to accept that. For the sake of the gospel. Look what he says. But I have made no use of any of these rights. Nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. Paul's not kind of passive aggressively going, you haven't paid me. You really need to pay me. And so I'm going to backhandedly tell you to pay me. He says, I haven't made use of these rights because I don't want to put an obstacle in the way of the gospel. And I'm not asking you to do it now. He says, for I would rather die than have anyone deprive me on my ground for boasting. For if I preach the gospel. That gives me no ground for boasting, for necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. Paul's position is very clear, he says, when he was on the road to Damascus to kill Christians, Jesus came to him and said, you're mine. I have a job for you to do. And Paul said, I'm yours. I'll do that job. And then he's off traveling the Mediterranean, telling people about Jesus. He says, I'm just doing what I was commanded to do. There's no boasting in that. If you boast because you did the thing your job description says for you to do, you're like, what are you boasting for? You haven't gone above and beyond. You've just done the thing you were asked to do. Paul says, I was told to preach by Jesus. I'm preaching. He says this, for if I do this, verse 17, if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship, what then is my reward? That in my preaching, I may present the gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel, for though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. So Paul says, I haven't asked for support, I have a right to it. I'm not going to take it because, one, what I'm doing, I'm going to have to do anyway. And two, I have this reward that Jesus is going to give me. And so I'm not charging. Now, Paul did take money from other churches. He didn't he didn't tell the Corinthians to pay him at all. But we read in 2nd Corinthians chapter 11, we put the verse on the screen. Paul's writing to the Corinthian church, and he says this, or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burn anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia, supplied my need. So I refrained and were refrained from burning you in any way. As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achai. And why? Because I do not love you. God knows I do. There were churches that had sent Paul support. I don't know if Paul asked for it, and I don't think he demanded it, but they had sent it, and he said, I was really in need because I'm trying to work this job, tent making, and do all this other work in Corinth. He said, I didn't burn you guys with it in Corinth. And then this gift came from this other church. And Paul says, I'm in partnership with these churches. They were wanting to advance the gospel through Paul, and they sent the thing that he needed. So he would accept he accepted that money, he said. So he wasn't opposed, I have a right to it, but I don't always have to use that right in order to spread the gospel. And so we see Paul defends his freedom, to sacrifice his right to support for the sake of the gospel. Again, most of you in here. We have a few people who are training for ministry who are thinking, how does this work? How do I make my how do I feed my family? If I'm in ministry, how does that work in my life? But most of you, you're not here and in the ministry in that sense, in the sense of, is it how I earn a living? And so we go, how do we process this for today? Go back to the main point of this message? And it's really the main application point for the next several weeks. Be willing to sacrifice your rights for the sake of the gospel. Be willing to sacrifice your rights. Those are things that you can do that are good and right. for the sake of the gospel. Now, if Jesus says we can't do something, we don't have a right to do it. But if Jesus doesn't, that's fine to do, you can do that. So eat this meat that had been sacrificed to idols, Paul said, I can eat it. It's not a problem. I won't eat it if it harms another brother. Be willing to sacrifice your rights for the sake of the gospel. Two things I want you to get from this. One is not the main point, but one is what Paul has talked about, and is this. The Bible supports ministers being paid. First Timothy 5, another letter that Paul wrote, he said this, let the elders, elders, is another word in the Bible, another title for pastors. He says, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox, when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. And so the Bible supports ministers being paid. We live in a cynical age somewhat, because there are a lot of people, and I think Paul is in the same type of age that would say, you're using religion to just make yourself rich. And Paul is aware of that. And he said, first, the Bible says, yes, ministers should be paid. And it also says, we shouldn't do anything that compromises the gospel. But the Bible supports that. Here at Northon, we have about 22 people. on our staff that we pay for various things. Everyone who's on our staff is paid to enable the church and the members of the church to accomplish the mission that we have, which is for people to experience a transforming encounter with God. So we do people to do certain things. We pay some people to make sure the building's clean when you come in here in the morning. We pay people to help organize our life groups to make sure everything's in place, to get all that work done. We pay them so that they can free up that time in their week to do that job so we make sure the mission is accomplished. The 1st part of our mission, though, is that people could come to know Christ, that Jesus loves them, that God loves you, that he died for you, that he rose again, that our separation from him and our rebellion can be ended when we put our faith in Christ because he has taken care of our sin, and the guilt of our sin, and the punishment for our sin by dying on the cross and rising again. We then want to see people grow in their relationship with Jesus. We want to see them raised up through life groups, through Bible studies, and we pay people to help organize all those to make sure they happen. We want to have authentic community with others. We want people to grow together and closer together, and we pay some people to help organize events, to make sure they happen, all the work that goes into putting on events. We have a worship night tonight at 7 o'clock. We want to have a fellowship afterwards. And there's people who are coordinating, not doing all the work, but coordinating a whole group of people who get to serve and find fulfilling service opportunities in serving Christ. Now, when I was putting this message together, one of the easy things was here at Northland, the church has always been generous to its staff, always taken care of its staff. We have a budget team of church members and a personal team of church members that look at kind of what are people paid each year and kind of take care of that. And they've always been generous. So it wasn't like, 0 my gosh. The church isn't paying people very well around here. I'm going to have to get up and scold y'all. of that going on. But we do pay people for certain jobs. And the Bible supports that, but what Paul is really pushing at isn't that. He's not really making that argument, even in this part of the letter, his argument is, make your love of the gospel bigger than your rights. The question we should ask ourselves in every situation we're in is, how will using my rights, in this situation, impact other people? An example that hasn't happened in my life, but I'm adjacent to. My youngest daughter is a vegetarian. She's not ethically a vegetarian in the sense that she thinks eating meat is just wrong and horrible. She just chose not to eat meat. But I started thinking, what if she had a group of friends who are all vegetarians, and they were like, just, they think it's wrong to eat meat, to have a steak. And I was sitting down with her friends who are unbelievers. And we were all at a restaurant, they all order their vegetarian plates, and I order the T-bone. I have a right to the T bone. The Bible doesn't say I can't eat the T-bone steak. But if I sat down in that group and order the T-bone steak, Many of them who don't know Jesus, probably go, I'm not listening to this clown. The thing he's doing right now is distracted me. What I would do is just order the vegetable plate. Jesus hasn't commanded me to eat the T-bone steak, so I don't have to. I have the right to, but I would forego eating that so that when I share Christ, they wouldn't be distracted by this other thing, that I would care more about them than I would the fact of what I'm going to eat in that specific meal. Now, maybe later that night, I'll go, I'm starving. All I had was vegetables. I go home and cook a T-bone in the house by myself, and it's fine. That's what in this situation, how we're using my rights. The thing I can do, because it's okay with God to do it, how will it impact those around me? And if it's going to hinder them in any way, says, don't do it. Don't engage in that activity. Now, that's a thing that each of you individually kind of have to wrestle with. Paul's giving specific examples in Corinth about meat sacrifice to idols, probably not going to wrestle with that, about being compensated in your service to God. Most of you aren't going to have to deal with that. But each of us will find situations in 2026 where we go, okay, God, I could do this thing. But is that going to compromise the gospel? Is that going to hurt a fellow believer in any way or is that going to keep someone from coming to faith? And if it is, I'm not going to do that thing. I'm just going to avoid that thing for the sake of the gospel. Be willing to sacrifice your rights. For the sake of the gospel. Will you join me in prayer?