Septuagesima
1 Cor
9:24-10:5
2/1/26
Recently, Indiana University won the
national championship in college football. It was an amazing story.
Historically, Indiana had been one of the losingest teams. Two years ago they
hired Curt Cignetti to be their coach. He entered the job with a confidence and
bravado that seemed absurd for someone coaching at Indiana. When asked at his
introductory press conference about what people should know about him, he
replied: “I win. Google me.”
However, Cignetti used the new college rules
of the transfer portal and paying players to transform Indiana. Last season
Indiana went 11 and 2, and made it to the playoffs. This year his team went 16
and O to win the national championship. Remarkably, he did so with a team of
players who were not highly rated recruits.
The Indiana story captivated sports fans
across the country. The national championship game had 30 million viewers. It
was the largest viewership for a non-NFL game since another sports story that
captured the nation’s attention: game seven of the 2016 World Series as the
Chicago Cubs won their first championship in one hundred years.
Sports play a huge role in our culture. We
are drawn to big sporting events that have high stakes and great story lines. But
we are not in any way unique. This has always been true. It was true in the
first century world, and in our text today Paul draws upon this fact in order
to make his point.
Our text this morning comes from a portion
of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in which he was addressing a significant
question that confronted early Christians.
We take it for granted that there will be meat in our meals. We also
live in a setting where meat is freely available – you can walk into a grocery
store and get any kind that you want.
However, this was not the case in the first
century Greco-Roman world. For them, meat was not something that was a daily
part of their diet. It was expensive and not readily available. Almost all of the meat that was available in
a city came from one source – animals sacrificed at pagan temples.
People had access to this meat in a variety
of ways. We know from archaeology that temple complexes had dining rooms where
this meat was served. These were spaces that could be rented for celebrations
like a birthday. Eating meat in this setting wasn’t always specifically
religious. But that didn’t change the fact that it was the grounds of a pagan
temple, and the meat being served came from pagan religious rites.
In the course of chapter eight, Paul had pointed out that while only God who had revealed himself in Christ is the true God. And while idols were nothing, not everyone understood this clearly. Those who were weak in faith, could be misled by seeing a Christian eat in one of these temple dining rooms. He said “For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.”
During the course of chapter nine, Paul
then used himself as an example of how Christians needed to act in ways that care
for the neighbor such as he had just described. A Christian shouldn’t eat at a
temple dining room because it might lead another Christian back into paganism.
At times a Christian will not make use of all his rights in order seek the good
of another. Paul himself had done this in sharing the Gospel. Just before our
text he said, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I
might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share
with them in its blessings.”
At the beginning of our text, Paul
addresses the need for self-control in the life of a Christian. This
self-control – or discipline – is necessary for two reasons. First, it enables
us to put the needs of others first, just as Paul had been discussing. And
second, it assists us in avoiding sin which can cause the loss of salvation.
Paul says, “Do you not know that in a race
all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you
may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do
it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” The apostle uses the metaphor of athletics to
make his point. It is something that would have connected with his Corinthian
readers because of how big sports were in their world. Every other year Corinth
hosted the Isthmian Games. This was a major Hellenic athletic contest that was
second only to the Olympics in importance. Great crowds attended the games, and
financially it was important for the city.
Paul’s point is that we all know how
athletes train in a rigorous way – how they exercise self-control. In Paul’s
day that did it to receive a wreath made of plastered pine leaves that adorned
the head of the winner. Today, they do it to receive a championship. But these
are both things that perish. Who won the 1935 college football national
championship? No one remembers. It has vanished into nothing.
But as Christians we are straining toward
the prize of the crown that will never fade away. As Paul told Timothy, “I have
fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth
there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only
to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”
Because the Christian life leads to eternal life, we will want to be committed in the way we go about living. Paul adds, “So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”
Thus far, Paul’s words have been directed
towards how we live in relation to others. When the apostle talked about this
to the Philippians he said, “Do nothing from selfish ambition
or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than
yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also
to the interests of others.” He then described how Jesus Christ provides the
model for this, because he humbled himself in the death of the cross to save
us.
In our fallenness the natural inclination
is to look out for ourselves. We look for ways that make my life easier – ways
that give me the best outcome. In doing so, we ignore the needs of those around
us. Or worse yet, we actively harm them.
But through baptism we are a new creation
in Christ. The Spirit of Christ has made us a new man. And so we are able to
see these impulses for what they are. Instead, as Paul describes we are able to
direct our efforts in ways that put to death the old Adam. The discipline is
that of choosing first to help, support, and assist our spouse, parent,
sibling, and co-worker. So put their
needs first, as you are Christ to them.
Paul uses the metaphor of an athlete who is
self-controlled and disciplined in order to address how Christians put the
needs of others first. But he also does
this for a second reason that appears in the latter portion of our text.
Self-control and discipline are needed because it assists us in avoiding sin
which can cause the loss of salvation.
Some of the Corinthians appear to have had
a very skewed view of the Christian life.
They believed that because they were baptized and were receiving the
Lord’s Supper they had a spiritual status that made the immune to the dangers
of the pagan world. They did not see the sinful behaviors of the world as being
a threat to faith.
Paul addresses this by talking about what
had happened to God’s people in the Old Testament. Israel had also experienced God’s miraculous
action. He had brought them through the water of the Red Sea. He had fed them
with manna from heaven. He had given them water from a rock. The apostle
writes, “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers
were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all
were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the
same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.” Paul
connects what Israel experienced with what the Corinthians were now
experiencing in the sacraments.
But then he adds, “Nevertheless, with most
of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the
wilderness.” Israel had experienced
God’s saving action. But they continued in sin, and as a result they received
God’s judgment and perished in the wilderness.
The apostle wants the Corinthians – and us
– to know that this is not just ancient history. Instead, as the Church this is
our history, and God is using it to teach and guide us in how we are to
live. Immediately after our text Paul says, “Now these things took place as
examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” More specifically the apostle adds: “Do not
be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, ‘The people sat
down to eat and drink and rose up to play.’ We must not indulge in sexual
immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a
single day.”
Paul
refers to the idolatry of the gold calf at Mt Sinai, and the sexual immorality
that occurred at Baal Peor. After adding a couple more instances Paul concludes
by saying, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were
written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”
These
things were written down for our instruction. Paul says we need to be
self-controlled and disciplined in avoiding idolatry. For the Corinthians this meant not
participating in the rites and meals of a pagan temple. For us it means putting God first in relation
to our money by returning a proportional first fruits of our income back to
him. It means putting God first on Sunday as the day we receive his Means of
Grace. It means putting God first as the source of our confidence and assurance
in life.
Paul
says that we need to be self-controlled and disciplined in avoiding sexual
immorality. For the Corinthians, this meant only having sex with one’s spouse
and not having sex with prostitutes, slaves, and anyone who wasn’t the wife of
man, because the culture considered all of these to be completely acceptable.
For us it is very similar because it means only having sex with one’s spouse –
only having sex as husband and wife – and not with anyone else because our
culture says that sex is for hook ups; sex is for dating; sex is for living
together; sex is for basically anything you want to do.
And
in our own setting it means avoiding pornography. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was
said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone
who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with
her in his heart.” Pornography existed in Corinth. But technology now makes it
available in a form and with a power that is different from anything that has
existed before. Not only is it sinful as it brings spiritual harm, but this sin
destroys relationships and rewires the brain so that an individual is not
capable of functioning sexually as God created us to be.
Paul
tells us that we need to be self-controlled and disciplined as we press on for
the crown that does not perish – for eternal life and resurrection with
Christ. We do so we because we live as
those upon whom the end of the ages has come.
That
is what has happened in Jesus Christ. At Christmas we celebrated how in the
fullness time God sent forth his Son, as Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary. God’s end time action to redeem us from sin and
death arrived in Christ. Jesus took our sin as if it was his own, and received
God’s judgment against sin that we deserved. God condemned our sin in the flesh
of Christ on the cross so that we can be forgiven before him.
Then on Easter God the Father raised Jesus from the dead. Resurrection is a Last Day event. Scripture teaches us that the resurrection of the Last Day began in Jesus. Paul says later in this letter, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
The
Holy Spirit was poured out by the risen and ascended Lord on Pentecost, for God
had said through Hosea, “And in the last days it shall be, God
declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.” Now the
Spirit has made you a new creation in Christ as you were born again in baptism.
Forgiven in Christ, you are now led and enabled by the Spirit to live in Christ
– to be self-controlled and disciplined as you walk in the ways of the Lord
that lead to salvation and eternal life.
