July 19, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Transcribed by Beluga AI.
Thank you, God, for your love.
Dear ones, I pray that we would know it in our heads, but I pray that we would know it in our hearts, that the almighty, sovereign, all-powerful, unapproachable light, glorious, hallowed, supreme God of the universe is a good, good Father to you.
He loves you. He cares. Listen, cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you. If it matters to you, it matters to Him. If it matters to you, it matters to Him.
Thank you, Lord. Would you apply that to our hearts? Let that sink in, that you're a good, good Father, that Jesus came to reveal you in a way that nobody had revealed you up until that time. That you are a good, good Father.
And I thank you. Through Christ we pray, Amen.
That concept of God the Father is seen in the Old Testament somewhat, but not—it's revolutionary. It is a part of the Christian revolution that Jesus teaches God as Father. What does Islam say? God is great.
God is great, God is powerful. That's the Old Testament. If you ask somebody, "What does the Old Testament emphasize—the fatherhood of God or the glory, grandeur, sovereignty of God?" They would say the glory. It would be the glory, grandeur, and sovereignty of God.
And if you ask certain brands of Christianity, "What does God lead with? What is God's priority? His glory or His love?" And there are Christians who would say, "Oh, it's His glory. His love is secondary. God does all this to glorify Himself."
I think Jesus comes and puts that on its head. I think God's primary motive for creating and God's primary motive behind everything is love. And He's glorified in His love. He's glorified in His love. And so that's just my take.
I don't know if you know that that's kind of a debate in Christendom, you know—glory before love or love before glory? I'm settled on that one, man. I'm settled on that one. Our Father. Jesus comes and leads with Father. Notice, "Our Father…" Then He goes to glory—they're both there—"hallowed be your name." But He starts with "Daddy"; He leads with "Daddy."
The whole Sermon on the Mount… do you not know? Not a sparrow falls… how much more does your Father value you?
I mean, we are so immersed in a Christian worldview that that's the water we swim in, that God is loving, that God is good, that God is Father, even to the point where people will just say, "we're all children of God," as if that's just a normal human assumption that people have been making throughout history.
First of all, it's not really literally true from a biblical perspective that we're all children of God. But I would say also that, listen, you are children of God by faith in Christ, and so, dear ones, you are God's children and you are deeply loved.
That song just kind of got that little mini sermon going in me. All right? He's a good Father and He loves you. And much of our struggle in our Christian life comes from the fact that we believe it as a doctrine in our heads, but maybe because of the insufficiency of our earthly fathers, the woundedness in which we live out this world, the trauma we've experienced, we don't know it in our hearts.
And that's certainly been the case for me throughout my life. You know, if somebody says to me, "Kevin, do you know God loves you?" I say, "I believe God loves me, yes. I mean, the Bible says God loves me." "Do you feel it?" Not as often as I'd like to. I can count my blessings, you know, it's like, God must love me. I'm just so blessed, you know. He gave me all, you know, so I'm happy. I'm happy. But just to feel loved is… Lord, let it reach our hearts that you're a good, good Father.
Just say a quick prayer for somebody on your right or on your left or maybe both—somebody else in this room, just say a quick prayer. Let's close our eyes. Let's say a quick prayer and say, "God, I pray that that person would experience in their hearts that you're a good Father."
While we were doing that, did God speak to anybody? Did God just say anything to any of you when you were doing that? Did you get a little like a word, or a picture? All right. If you did, and you're going to come up to me afterwards and say, "Kev, I just didn't want to say it in front of everybody, but I just want to tell you," I'm going to stop praying for you, all right? Don't do that to me, all right? Don't do that. Don't be that person.
You know, I love you introverts, but come on, come on, make it happen.
All right. 1 Corinthians 9, and we're going to do the whole chapter. On your mark, get set, go.
1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? 2 If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you, because you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. 4 Don't we have the right to eat and drink? 5 Don't we have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife like the other apostles, the Lord's brothers, and Cephas? 6 Or do only Barnabas and I have no right to refrain from working? 7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not drink the milk from the flock? 8 Am I saying this from a human perspective? Doesn't the law also say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the law of Moses, Do not muzzle an ox while it treads out grain. Is God really concerned about oxen? 10 Isn't he really saying it for our sake? Yes, this is written for our sake, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes should thresh in hope of sharing the crop. 11 If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it too much if we reap material benefits from you? 12 If others have this right to receive benefits from you, don't we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right; instead, we endure everything so that we will not hinder the gospel of Christ. 13 Don't you know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the offerings of the altar? 14 In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel. 15 For my part I have used none of these rights, nor have I written these things that they may be applied in my case. For it would be better for me to die than for anyone to deprive me of my boast! 16 For if I preach the gospel, I have no reason to boast, because I am compelled to preach —and woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 For if I do this willingly, I have a reward, but if unwillingly, I am entrusted with a commission. 18 What then is my reward? To preach the gospel and offer it free of charge and not make full use of my rights in the gospel. 19 Although I am free from all and not anyone's slave, I have made myself a slave to everyone, in order to win more people. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews; to those under the law, like one under the law—though I myself am not under the law —to win those under the law. 21 To those who are without the law, like one without the law—though I am not without God's law but under the law of Christ—to win those without the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some. 23 Now I do all this because of the gospel, so that I may share in the blessings. 24 Don't you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize. 25 Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown. 26 So I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. 27 Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:1-27, CSB)
And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB)
Paul's letter to the Corinthians is all about correcting problems and abuses from an immature church, an immature church that thought they had arrived. And Paul is reminding them that they have only just begun. And then he brings out evidence after evidence of their immaturity. There are divisions. There is sexual immorality. They flaunt their freedom and eat food offered to idols, even though they're free to do so, to the spiritual harm of those who conscientiously don't do that and think it's wrong to do.
And so, he says, "Your pride just shows that you're spiritually immature." And they accuse him. Paul came as an apostle, and they accused him of not being a genuine apostle. And it's basically like, "We don't have to listen to you anymore, old man."
It's like, you know, you raise your kids, you're their dad, you love on them, you discipline them, and you know, they just come to a point… "I don't have to listen to you, old man." You know? "I can do what I want to do."
And that was the kind of their attitude toward Paul. "You don't have the right to speak into our lives anymore. We've arrived. In fact, we're probably more mature than you. We're more spiritual than you." And his whole letter is to say, "Well, no, you're not. No, you're not, and here's the evidence."
And so here he defends his apostolic authority. First century apostles had some authority. We Protestants have taken the authority of the first century apostles and taken their book and have said, "This is our apostolic authority. We don't have apostles coming around teaching us. We have the original apostles through their writings, through their teachings, continuing to teach us." And that's why we say that this is authority.
The other branches of the church say, "No, apostolic authority has continued to some degree through apostolic succession. And we have both the Scriptures that the first-century apostles wrote, but we also have the apostolic authority through, you know, through the…" What's the head of the Church in the East called? In the West, it's the Pope. In the East, it's… Anybody know? I do know, and it's not coming to mind.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Only say that in Greek, and you might be right. So…
But it's still—Paul is asserting his authority to speak into their lives, and that's what he says:
"Am I not free? I'm not under anyone but Christ. I'm not under Peter and James, the head of the churches in Jerusalem. In fact, I rebuked Peter to his own face when he was acting out of accordance with what an apostle should be doing.
"Now, I submit myself to the Jerusalem council; I submit myself to the council of elders because all Christians," he says, "all Christians, we are to submit to one another."
But he does that freely and voluntarily. There's nobody who comes to Paul and says, "I have a bigger apostolic authority than you do." He says, "No, I have apostolic authority." The evidence that we have of that—Paul's going to give the evidence that he gives for that. But the evidence that we have for that is that 2,000 years later, his writing still functioned very effectively and very authoritatively in his body.
And every branch of Christianity, whether they agree that there's other apostolic authority, still says that this is apostolic authority. The Eastern Church, the Catholic Church, they don't deny the authority of the Scriptures. They just deny sola scriptura, that Scripture alone is the authority. So just be clear on that.
But as Protestants, we say, "No, nobody carries the authority of a first-century apostle, and therefore we have the writing."
I will say this, that begs the question, what about apostles today? Are there apostles today? Is the gift of apostles still functioning today? And my answer to that is yes and no. My answer to that is yes and no. In the sense of a first-century apostle who is not under the authority of Scripture, my answer to that is no. We have nobody out there today who can write new Scripture for us, who can say, "Yeah, the Bible has changed its mind on this." All right? We don't have that kind of apostolic authority.
However, an apostle also, in the New Testament, is one who is sent to establish new works and to oversee new works and often to oversee a multiplicity of churches. I believe that that gift still exists today.
Ephesians 4 says that Jesus has given to the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
11 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, (Ephesians 4:11, CSB)
Most people would agree that the last three are functioning today. Many people disagree that the first two, apostles and prophets, are functioning today. They say that those gifts especially have ceased at the writing of the Scripture.
I don't think they have. I think we still need people who establish works and who aren't maybe local pastors, but who oversee, who are a pastor to works, who are a pastor to pastors. I think people can have the gift of apostleship as well as be a local pastor. I think there are people who have pastoral oversight over other pastors and can be a pastor. But I think basically, I think there is the gift of one who is sent to do that kind of work.
Not everybody who proclaims to be an apostle, however, is an apostle. A lot of people take that on as their self-designated title—"I'm an apostle." I think it is always best that the church names these things, not the individual, because the church is the one who experiences these things. The church is the one who says… Thomas Omenta, who I went to visit in Africa, we were talking about what our gifts are and stuff. I looked at Thomas and I said, "Thomas, you're an apostle. You are an apostle." He's got his hand in so many fires. He oversees so many works and leads so many different people. And he's very organized at it, and he's very good at it.
And his administrator just lit up, and she said, "Yes, exactly. That's what we try to tell him."
And Thomas, very humbly and I think very rightly, said, "I'll never take that title onto myself." In other words, "You can call me that, Kevin. My administrator can call me that. But I'm never going to go around in different churches and say I'm Apostle Thomas," and I just respect that in him. I think that's great.
But he carries it. I think he carries it.
Now let me say this, all five of those—this is not a sermon on Ephesians 4, by the way. If I ever do Ephesians, I'll get into more depth on this. All five of those we all carry to some extent. We're all sent. You know, in a sense you're the apostle to your neighborhood and workplace. You are commissioned by God. You're sent to that place to begin something. And we're all prophets. We all have the ability to hear the voice of God and speak the voice of God. We're all evangelists. We're all called to be witnesses to people and to share Christ. We're all pastors. We all are called to give some care, some care for the spiritual well-being of those around us. We're all teachers. If you're a parent, you're a teacher, right? The first line of teaching children the faith is the home.
But there are some people who function in a larger, more public kind of way in all five of those, and we call those people, then—we say, "Oh, Christ has given that person not just to a small sphere, but to a large sphere, His Church, as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers."
So that's all we're doing on Ephesians 4. Just to answer the question, does Kevin believe in the modern-day gift of apostle? My answer to that is yes, but no in the sense of a first-century apostle. You say I might be equivocating, but I don't care what you say. That's fine. I just think that's how it shakes down, and it's a tertiary matter. So if you disagree with me, that's fine too. It's secondary.
Paul, though, is defending his apostleship to the Corinthians, and there's no doubt… if there's a doubt about anybody being an apostle, there's got to be less doubt about St. Paul even than Peter and the Twelve because Paul's impact on the centuries has been secondary only to Jesus Christ himself.
I just finished reading Tom Holland's book, Dominion, and his thesis is that Christianity has revolutionized the world. He says it's just amazing to him that a crucified carpenter and, then a converted Pharisee have changed, have formed Western civilization.
By the way, I questioned, I think a couple of weeks ago, whether or not Tom Holland had come back to his Christian faith after writing the book, Dominion. And the answer to that is yes. Yes. So that was good news when I found that out. He's forsaken his atheism and become a Christian, believing in the God of his upbringing. So good news for Tom Holland.
All right. Good book if you can endure it. It's heavy. It's dense, it's dense, but it's worth the read. Or in my case, audiobooks. It was worth the listen.
Man, how long have I gone? I'm still on point one. I got two pages of notes. Poor you.
Paul says, "I'm free. There's no apostle over me. I've seen the risen Lord on the road to Damascus." He saw the risen Lord, which is a qualification for a first-century apostle to have encountered the risen Jesus. There may have been other times that Paul had seen Jesus, but he certainly did, it's certainly recorded in Scripture that he saw him on the road to Damascus.
And then his great proof of his apostleship is the Corinthian Church. An apostle is one who is sent to establish works. "Hello, Corinth, you're here. What does that make me? Peter didn't preach to you. Apollos didn't preach to you. They've preached to you since, and you've benefited from that. Yay. Other people have come through and said that they were apostles and I'm not. But guess what? You exist because the Lord sent me to preach in this place and stay with you for several years. You are the seal of my apostleship. You are the proof of my apostleship. If I'm not an apostle to anybody else, I'm at least an apostle to you. Therefore, I have the right to speak into your life."
But he goes on, and his next point—and he elaborates on this in great detail—is that apostles so love the fruit of their work that they will lay down their rights, their absolute rights, so that you might prosper. And Paul begins to talk in great detail about the rights of an apostle, a preacher, a teacher, a prophet, and that these rights are valid and good and established in the Bible.
And yet his whole point is, "I've laid these down for you that you might benefit from my apostleship."
And so he says he has the right to receive a living in his preaching and traveling ministry from the churches that he preaches to and travels to. And yet he forsook that and was bivocational and became a tent maker so that he would put no burden on these churches whatsoever.
He brings this out to the Corinthians. A soldier, a farmer, a shepherd, all receive the benefit of their labor. They all receive the benefit of their labor. He says, "Don't muzzle the ox in the Bible." That's true, certainly in the literal context of a farmer. If you have a working beast, you care for that beast. It only makes sense. Who wants a weak ox treading out the grain? Who wants a weak plow horse? You want a well-fed, sturdy plow horse. And so you take care of your animals.
By the way, just another little rabbit trail here. The Bible fully embraces, which the ancient world did not really embrace at all, the picture that cruelty to animals is wrong. And as always, human beings go to two extremes. Human beings go to both ends of the scale, and the golden mean is right down the middle. And there are some people who just think animals are purely here for our disposal and there's no need to have a conscience toward them. Use them, abuse them, do whatever you want to them. They're just stupid animals. And that's cruel.
Nate Bargatze, the comedian, talks about in the '80s, you know, they used to go to the fair, and his dad was a musician. But it was always hard for his dad to get a crowd because right next to where his dad was doing magic, they had donkeys jumping off high dives into a pool.
He says, "It's really hard, you know? 'Hey, is this your card?' The guy's going, 'Hey, hang on a second. It's a donkey jumping off a high dive.'"
And Bargatze, you know, he just said, "You know, I don't know what your feelings are on PETA, but they were right about that one. All right? They got involved; they shut that down." Yeah, that's cruel. Well, maybe the donkeys like to jump off high dives. No, they sent dogs up after him to bark at him and chase him off the high dive. It's cruel. All right? For pure human exploit—you know, Stevin's just getting mad right now. He's just getting mad at those people. Exploitive entertainment for human beings. And so we shut that down.
On the other hand, you have those, the extreme PETA and others, who believe that there's no distinction between human rights and animal rights. And there are. Animals are not image bearers. They are not created in the image and likeness of God. You may love your little Snuffins, and you may treat your little Snuffins like they're your child, but they're not. They're not. They're a dog. They're a cat. And it's perfectly appropriate to love them and care for them. And if you own them, you better care for them. Because cruelty to animals is wrong. It's a sin. But so is the elevation of animals, where their lives then begin to take priority over human lives. They do not.
If you're driving down the road and there's a family in the minivan behind you, and if you slam on your brakes and there's a good chance they're going to rear-end you and may come to severe bodily harm and you may come to severe bodily harm as a human being, and if Bambi runs out in front of your car, you take out Bambi. Horn blaring, maybe slow down a little bit. But Bambi, you're a goner. Because those kids in the van behind me and myself also are image bearers. That's the distinction, all right?
Now, if nobody's behind you, by all means, don't hit Bambi, you know? Don't hit Bambi. But otherwise…
And you know, I don't know how far this applies, but I think if you kill it, you ought to eat it, or somebody ought to eat it. You know, I'm fine with hunting for sport, but you think you ought to eat, gotta eat what you... I was at a friend's house one time, and we're out there having our little cigar bonfire. One of the guys brought his little .22 rifle, and he bragged that he could hit a robin from 100 yards. And he could not. All right? He couldn't hit a robin from 100 yards.
But one poor robin got within about 30 feet of us, about 10 yards from us. And I'm sorry, Aiko, I see the distressed look on your face. He shot the robin. He killed that robin.
Then my other friend, whose property it was, says, "Okay, let's dress it out and eat it. You don't kill something on my property that we don't eat, all right?" And so they took the feathers out, they cut it open, and they cleaned it out. Not that big of a robin breast. We had our little fire going. They put it on a stick. We roasted it over the fire. And I have tried robin breast. I have, and it was gross.
What did it taste like? I'll tell you what it tasted like. Worms. That's what they eat. All right? I will never eat robin breast again unless somebody really seasons it.
Well, and just an aside, don't tell—you know, I used to tell this to my kids: Don't tell your mother. Don't tell Jill that one, all right? She won't let me go play with my friends again.
Stevin might even forbid me at this point from going.
I just want to tell you that one of those guys passed away and the other one moved to Maine, so I'm not playing with those friends anymore, all right? And I did not endorse the shooting of that robin. I was just there. And they're gross.
All right, enough on animals.
Don't muzzle the ox. Then Paul says, "You know, that's not really about oxen, though it applies." He says, "That's about those who work on your behalf sowing spiritual seeds. Someone who plows receives from the harvest. Someone who sows spiritual things should receive material compensation."
By the way, this is a sermon about Paul's apostleship. It is not a plea to pay Kevin, just an aside. All right? You guys take care of me so well. I got absolutely zero complaints in that department, so don't worry. This is not a "give me a raise" sermon. All right? So there you go.
The irony is that the Corinthians did not support Paul and then they thought less of him because of it. The other apostles who would come in and who were paid and who dressed nicer, they were obviously more spiritual. This is the beginnings of kind of a prosperity gospel. They had nicer horses, they had better chariots, they had newer robes. Obviously, the blessing of God was upon them.
No, the blessing of God is found in humility. And I'm not saying some of the false apostles may have been showing off. I'm sure Peter and Apollos weren't showing off. But showing off and saying, you know, "I have a bigger private jet than you have" is not proof of your apostleship.
And by the way, I'm not even opposed to preachers having private jets if they can justify it. Some people are just aghast that a preacher has a private jet. Well, if they travel a lot and it's convenient… And I know there are preachers with private jets who share them generously with other ministries and other preachers and stuff like that. I don't care. I don't care.
What matters to me is people's hearts. And I'm not judging people on their outward activity at all.
I remember Benny Hinn used to wear a white suit when he preached. I don't know if he still does, but he used to always wear a white suit. I remember telling one of my Pentecostal friends, "I'd never wear a white suit." And my Pentecostal friend said, "What if God told you to?" And I told my Pentecostal friend to shut up. I don't like it when people prove their point against me. I like being right.
But Paul says, "No, I don't ask for it so as not to hinder the preaching of the gospel. I Have every right to ask for it, every right to insist on it. But I refuse." He says, "The Lord has endorsed it. He's laid upon the church to do this." I don't know where exactly what Paul is referring to when he said, "The Lord endorsed this." It could be when He sends out His apostles two by two. He says, "Whatever house you go into," you know, "receive their hospitality, receive their food." That could be all he's referring to. But it seems like it may be more. Certainly, the Old Testament, right? You have the tribe of Levi. And the tribe of Levi is different than the other tribes. They live off the offerings of the other tribes because they take care of the household of God. And today, that's part of what tithes and offerings do, all right? And God's endorsement is on that. God says, "Yeah, that's a good thing to do. That's a right thing to do."
Another place, Paul says of people who preach the gospel, that they are worthy of double honor. What does that mean? They ought to get paid better than other people because they do more important work than other people.
Again, just a note of the Scriptures, not a plea, all right?
But he says, "I put that aside because my desire is to preach the gospel for free." He's setting an example of being willing to lay down those rights. And he says, "Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel."
I remember two instances from my past, and the Lord really corrected me on both of these very early in my life as a pastor. And I've just followed these forever. Both of them had to do with this kind of thing, with reimbursement for work done.
And when people would ask you to come preach at their church—I was the associate pastor, so a lot of churches would ask me, "Oh, our pastor's out of town. Can you send your associate to prepare?" And so, I'd be preaching. We had a large Methodist church, and they were all surrounded by all these different small cities with smaller Methodist churches. And that was great to me. I wanted to preach more.
So I'd get to preach in Porterville, Dinuba, Exeter, and Farmersville—all these little towns around, you know, these smaller churches. When their preacher was on vacation, you know, I was on the Rolodex, and they'd call me to preach, and I'd come preach. Always, these churches would give me some kind of honorarium.
And I remember one church didn't. And I... Yeah, I don't think I asked for it in this case, but I got resentful. Like, my gosh, I drove all the way down there, and I prepared this sermon. I preached, and, you know, nothing. You know, they just said, "Thank you very much."
In fact, later that church actually wrote me a nice note and said, "My gosh, we forgot. We wanted to do this." And they sent me money.
But I remember the Lord kind of, as I was complaining about that, the Lord said, "Listen, whenever"—and I've lived by this. This is why I went to Ghana a couple of years ago, because of this word from God: "Whenever anybody asks you to preach the gospel, do it. That's what you do. That's what I called you to do. Do it. Don't ever ask for money again. Don't ever expect money. Just do it. I'll take care of you. You preach the gospel."
So when my friend Rob Mangus got a hold of me and said, "We want you to come speak at our pastors' conference in West Africa," I immediately thought, I don't want to. I'm too old to travel. I don't like mission trips. I don't want to go to Africa. I like Rob and Laurie, but they don't have In N Out Burger. There are no Denny's. Grace Covenant was broke. They couldn't pay for it, even though it was their conference. And when Dallas would go speak, you know, that's covered in the Grace Covenant budget. But when I went, because I'm not Dallas, it's like, suck it up, buttercup.
Rob and Laurie sent me money. Missionaries, poor missionaries sent me money to help me go. I sent it back. Said, "I ain't taking money from people poorer than me." That, you know, go do this. Forget it. I sent it back. I was like, no, I'm not doing that.
And I just thought, okay, Lord, how do I get out of this?
And God did not help me get out of it. He reminded me. He said, "Remember when I told you somebody asked you to preach if you're not providentially excluded—you're sick, you can't be in two places at once, whatever—if you're not providentially excluded, you know, you're working at church and they don't want to let you go and do that…"
You guys could have helped out a lot by just saying, "Kevin, you can't go." All right? Stevin, Jamie, you know, maybe I need a sign. Like, okay, this means say no. Then I can say, "Hey, my board said I've been out of the pulpit too much and I gotta stay, you know." If I rub my nose twice and clear my throat…
So, I just, so I just had to write back and say, "Okay, I'm coming, I'm coming."
And Thomas… I go to East Africa. Thomas says, "I want you to come back in December." And I said, "Yeah, we're gonna check in about it twice in one year." I'm not gonna do that again. It's like, I don't wanna, you know, I can't afford that. You know, this trip was covered by you and by somebody else my last trip. And so, I'm thinking, "Yeah, but this next trip again, you know, I'm gonna ask Grace Covenant for some money. I know they're kind of broke, but doggone it, they ought to pony up on this."
And my son—did I tell you this? My son's father-in-law is a rich surgeon in Dallas. And he says, "Yeah, Michael was telling me about your trip to Africa." And he sent me a check for a substantial amount. "Here, I want to help cover that, you know, your last trip."
And so, I called him up. I say, "Hey, Don, that was already covered. So, you want me to send your money back?" He goes, "No." I go, "Okay." I said, "Well, the guy asked me to come back in December. Can I apply it to that?" He goes, "Yeah." It's like, dang. Dang.
So, you know, I've been praying, "Lord, do you want me to go in December?" And so, He sends me, you know, this big chunk of money and says, "What do you think?" So I'm going to go again in December, unless, of course, you guys come to my rescue.
So anyway. Yeah, yeah. Oh, good, I don't have to go. Actually, I'm looking forward to it because this one I do get to preach.
And here's the deal. So the Lord… And the other one was same thing. I did a wedding, and when I was a poor preacher, I was at this big Methodist church, and we had a, it was a nice, you know, nice side hustle with weddings and funerals. And, you know, mainline church, big church. We were on the Rolodex at the funeral parlor. If somebody, you know, wasn't a Methodist and they died and they didn't have a preacher and they wanted one, we were, you know, amongst the top ones to call. So, I'd get a lot of calls to come do a funeral. And then we had a nice sanctuary, and so a lot of people would use our building as a wedding chapel, and I would get a lot of weddings, and you usually get reimbursed for that.
And again, I remember one time, you know, I did a wedding and there was nothing. It was during the counseling, you know, the couple asked, "Well, what do we do for you?" And I always would, you know, say, "Here's what's customary, but do what you want. You know, this is what people normally give. But, you know, don't worry about it. Just do what you want." And so, they said, "Okay, yeah, we'll do that. We'll do that." So I was expecting it.
And then the wedding came and went, and we're kind of waiting, and the reception, and nothing, you know. Usually, it's the best man who's been given the job of handing over the check. So I went to the best man and said, "Hey, you know, they said this…" And he goes, "Oh, yeah, yeah. I forgot." He reached his pocket, and he gave it to me, and I felt so slimy. I just felt like… and again, I felt like the Lord said, "Hey, don't do that. Don't do that. Just offer it as a service. And, you know, if people ask you, 'What do people do?' You can tell them, 'This is normally what people, you know, do on these things.' But if they don't ask you, don't ask. Just do it."
And the third thing I will say—I'm like Paul, I'm not boasting here. I'm just saying this is the priorities. There are times in the past where this church has run low of funds and we haven't been able to pay all our bills. And I just want to tell you—and I'm not saying this as a hero or nothing. I just think this is the right way to do it: I'm the first one not to get paid. We pay our missions, we pay our bills, we pay people who work for us. And mine's the biggest chunk. And so it goes the furthest when we cut that out.
And, yeah, just like the Lord has, the Lord—and He has… there's been times throughout the years where I haven't received some checks and stuff. Almost every time at the end of the year, that's been made up, and the Lord's taken care of it. And you know what? Never gone hungry. Never missed a house payment. Never, you know, never, you know, wasn't able to give my kids, my grandkids, Christmas gifts.
God is faithful. I agree. I agree with Paul here. Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel.
16 For if I preach the gospel, I have no reason to boast, because I am compelled to preach —and woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Corinthians 9:16, CSB)
I remember Jill one time when times were hard and we were trying to get the Firehouse Church started, you know, she kind of said, "Have you ever thought about doing something different?"
I thought, "Well, you know, I can do the bi-vocational thing." But I really felt like the Lord had said, "No, just trust me in this." And so I launched out twice, kind of bi-vocationally, and both times it was like, nah, I shouldn't be doing this.
But anyway, I said—but I looked at her, and she thought I was being dramatic. And maybe I was, but I basically said, "If I stop preaching, I die." And I kind of feel that. And so now as I'm approaching retirement, it's like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait. So, you know, whoever, you know, takes over at the Firehouse Church, invite me for some guest appearances or I'm a goner, man. I'm a goner.
But really, I mean, the call—I'm not equating myself with the Apostle Paul by any means, but I get that when he says, "Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel. Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel." And so that's Paul's defense. "Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel. You cannot take this boast away from me."
And he says because of this he's obligated to no one, which is true. If you're a pastor of a local church and you have a board and they pay you a salary, it's got to be established up front: You do not dictate what I preach.
But there's a sense sometimes you get blackmailed. Sometimes people try to blackmail you. I've had people say on several occasions who were upset with the direction that the church was going. These were not people on the leadership because those decisions are made as a group. I don't make those decisions unilaterally. But people who didn't agree with where the group was going would come in and talk to me. And they say, "If you don't change this pastor…" And almost word for word, "I'm leaving and I'm taking my check with me." I've heard that more than once. Not a lot, but I've heard it more than once.
And I always say, "Oh, no, please don't do that. What do you want me to do?"
No, those of you who know me know that there's another response that comes to mind that I also don't articulate, or I articulate it in much kinder words than the thought that comes to mind. Something about a door hitting people at a particular... Anyway, I don't say it. I think it, but I don't say it.
But Paul says, "I'm obligated to no one. You don't own me. This is why I can rebuke you. Because I'm not interested in your approval. I'm interested in your sanctification. I'm interested in your growth. I'm interested in having you be formed in Christ."
And then he says this, and this has been misused, but he says, "To the Jew, I become a Jew. And to the Greek, I become a Greek."
Again, two opposite extremes. The truth is down the middle. Some people have taken this passage, and they've used it to water down the gospel. To a culture that's easily offended, "I don't want to offend, so I'll just gain a hearing, and I'll be very, very seeker friendly, very, very warm and welcoming. But I won't give them the whole truth until they take the bait." And that's dishonest.
I believe in being warm and welcoming. My goodness, let's not be the mean church. Let's be the nice church.
And one thing about small churches, when somebody comes in that typically is not a problem. You know, big churches are the churches where people come in and nobody talks to them because everybody thinks, oh, they must be regular. But a small church like this, when somebody comes in and visits, I mean, we're on that person like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat.
You know, everybody's like, "Oh, you know…"
"I'm just here to fill out papers."
"Okay. Want to come to church?"
"That's okay. We don't care."
All right. But it can be watered down. I remember in college… this was famous back in college days… "Hey, I'm dating unbelievers. I'm a believer, but I'm dating unbelievers." Remember what was that called, Brian? Missionary dating. "I'm doing missionary dating." And actually sometimes it worked, but usually it worked when the affection was real.
But it always struck me as interesting, even back as a college boy, I recognized this. All the girls who were doing missionary dating were focusing in on cute Cameron and, you know, Harry the Hunk, you know. And all the boys who were doing missionary dating were focused in on all the girls in Chico State who would come out during the first warm day in Chico. And these girls would do this. I mean, it doesn't happen now, but they would all just like, get in their bikinis and sunbathe on the lawn in Chico State. Hundreds of girls out there in bikinis. I crashed my bike more than once. Ran into a few trees, dumped it in the creek, you know…
But those guys… I wanted to pick up the handbook on missionary dating and say missionary dating is particularly designed to reach the hot ones. Because nobody missionary dated Dorky Dan or Big Betty. All right? No, you weren't being a Jew to the Jews or a Greek to the Greek. You were being a normal college co-ed, hitting on people and using the name of Christ to justify it with your small group on Thursday night. All right?
Did they do missionary dating at Stanford? Too many Dorky Dans there? Yeah, there weren't that many hunks out there. Football team was a small slice.
All right, so here you go. What does it mean to the Jew? Become a Jew to the—
Oh, and the error on the opposite extreme is we exclude people because we hold on to our rigid traditions instead of making the gospel accessible to people when nothing of the gospel is at stake. But all that's at stake is a shift in culture.
You can say what you want about Chuck Smith, and I'm sure he's not perfect. I'm sure he wasn't a perfect man. I know he wasn't a perfect man. I know Calvary Chapel wasn't a perfect movement. I believe they got their eschatology completely wrong and the whole bit.
But one of the things I just admire about Chuck Smith and, to that matter, Jack Hayford at Church on the Way and other pastors—the original Jesus Movement pastor… and I wish I could remember his name. I got to read that book again, God's Forever Family. In San Francisco… Conservative Baptist church. A hippie came to them and said, "Hey, man, I met Jesus. You got to come down to Haight Ashbury. That's a huge mission field." The pastor went down with him to Haight Ashbury, and he left. He said, "I can't reach those kids." But he said, "You can. And when you bring them to church, when you bring them to this church, I promise you they will be welcome."
And basically, a tie-wearing, short hair pastor said, "They don't have to change their clothes. I want them to get Christ."
And the story—and I don't know which is true. There's two stories that go with this. Chuck Smith, the hippie, started coming, you know, to church. And the old folks in church were upset. They didn't dress right, they didn't speak Christianese, they didn't know the hymns. They were just bothered by these, you know, folks in church. Sometimes they wouldn't sit in the pew. They just sat, you know, cross-legged on the floor, because, "Man, that's just the way to be free."
And then the big complaint was, you know, "We just spent several thousand dollars on this carpet, and they got their dirty, grimy bare feet and sandaled feet coming in here, and they are destroying our new carpet. Pastor, what are you going to do about that? You got to teach these people some hygiene."
In fact, that was Chuck Smith's first… You know, his wife had the heart first. She said, "These kids need our prayer." And he said, "These kids need a bath." You know?
But the story goes, and here are the two stories, and I don't know which one is true, but they came, the board came to Chuck and said, "You got to take care of this. They're destroying our carpet." Chuck Smith said, "It'll be taken care of by next Sunday." And everybody came to church next Sunday. And Chuck Smith had the new carpet torn out of the church.
Right on, Chuck Smith, that's being a Greek to the Greeks and a Jew to the Jews.
The other story, and this is the one that's portrayed in the Jesus Revolution movie, is the next Sunday he was at the front door, and he was washing everyone's feet when they came into the sanctuary. Either way, he nailed this when he did that. He nailed this when he did that.
The original Jesus Movement in San Francisco, it cracked me up. I was reading about it, and to the extent they wrestled with this, how do we be authentic Christians but not add our Christian cultural baggage into a message that other people won't be able to hear the gospel because of our cultural baggage.
And so, they actually had discussions, the early hippies, "What drugs do we need to give up?" And they decided, "Yeah, we should probably give up LSD and heroin." But they decided, at least the original band decided, "We can't give up smoking pot because if we stop smoking pot, they will think we're narcs because the narcs don't smoke pot. And then, therefore, they'll reject us."
And then my favorite story was in those—us oldies remember that you know, a big thing in the late '60s and early '70s because people just wanted to be free, get rid of all those, you know, cultural inhibitions. And so they established nudist colonies. And so people would hang out at these nudist colonies. And the only rule was no clothes. Just nude all the time, you know, and you're just free and you're nude. And it's like, yeah, well, don't go picking berries. You know, don't go out in the bushes.
But, you know, they were nude. And so this guy just… "How do I reach these people at the nudist colony?" So, bless his heart, everything but a big King James Bible. And he went into the nudist colony and started sharing Jesus.
All right, you say, "Well, Kevin, are you telling us to preach naked?"
I'm telling you that essentially that's not a violation of the gospel. That's not a violation of the gospel. The English missionaries did a great job missionizing the world, but they made huge mistakes. When they moved from foggy, cold, rainy England in their modest full suits and, you know, neck-to-toe wool skirts, and they go someplace like the Philippines and they'd preach the gospel, and these Filipino natives would convert to Christ and immediately they would dress the women and men up as British people, right, Brian? That was the history. The early history.
What? No, but that's the early history in the 1800s, 1700s-1800s.
And these people would die from heat exhaustion. They never asked the important question. They knew what modesty looked like in Britain, but they didn't know what modesty looked like in that culture.
The important thing isn't "You have to prescribe to our understanding of modesty in our culture." But whatever modesty is in your culture, modesty is a biblical principle. Obviously, when it's 100 degrees and 95% humidity, modesty cannot entail full-length wool skirts. All right? It just can't. People die from that.
And so Paul says, "I want to reach people but without compromising the message." The message is unchanging; the method is flexible. Behold, no choir, no pipe organ. None of you are wearing suits. And my goodness, I'm scandalized. You women are wearing slacks and you don't have your heads covered. You brazen women, you.
All right, good. You can now pray and prophesy. The rest? I'm not so sure. There you go, Jamie, put the glasses up there. There you go.
All right. Then, Paul, finally, he concludes his message and says, "I'm like an athlete. I run and I fight to win. I'm disciplined. I'm disciplined." There are two things that make somebody an effective Christian. The anointing of the Holy Spirit and the discipline, the discipleship in that person's life. And it's not either or.
Michael Jordan, one time an incredibly gifted basketball player, perhaps one of the most gifted basketball athletes to ever live, went to a coach and said, "I want to be the greatest ever."
And the coach says, "Then you need to work hard, harder than all these guys."
And Michael Jordan didn't hear the coach. He said, "I work as hard as these guys."
And Roy Williams, the assistant coach, said, "No, that's not what I said. You have more talent than all these guys. But if you want to be the greatest ever, there's somebody else out there with as much talent as you. Which one's going to work harder?"
That's the story of every great athlete, every great composer, every great surgeon, every great engineer, every great farmer, and every great parent. Discipleship, intentionality. You want anything significant to happen? You know, when Spain won the World Cup, Stevin? It wasn't this afternoon. It was when they were six years old, they got into the Spanish soccer system. They've been trained, coached, and disciplined in that system all the way till their twenties. Then their supreme athleticism melds together with this system, and they become the world champions.
And they all dance and sing and we go, "Oh, wouldn't that be great, to be the world champions." There's a price to that. There's a price to that.
You want to be effective as a Christian disciple? Then be a disciple. Discipline your body.
We play to win the game. That's why we're in discipleship.
Yesterday, went to my grandson's baseball game, and they played a game, went extra innings. Really close game. They came back, then the other team came back, kept going into extra innings, and finally the score was tied. And it looks like we're going to go to play another extra inning. They have a guy on third base and a batter comes up. They have two outs, and the batter comes up, and he hits a fly ball to left field. If the kid catches it, we're going to another extra inning. But the poor boy dropped it.
And the mothers on the other team are like mothers universal. It's not like "They're the bad guys; we're the good guys." All the mothers are the same. They said the exact same thing the mothers on our team would have said. First of all, they cheered wildly. "Way to go, Tommy. Way to go, Quincy. Way to go, boys. Great game. We won. We won. We won." Then they looked at our kid out in left field, wiping the tears away from his cheek. And all the mothers like, "Oh, that poor kid."
And his mother was sitting by me, and she was devastated. You know, you could just see she wasn't crying or anything, but you could just see the pain in her face, like, "Oh, my gosh, my kid feels terrible." And they're like, "Oh, that poor kid."
And, you know, after the game, Jill and I are driving away, and I go, "Yeah, poor Ryder. That was tough. You know, Noah"—my grandson—"dropped a pass earlier. It didn't cost his team a run or the game. But, yeah, that was tough."
And then my wife said the worst thing, almost grounds for divorce. Just the absolute most horrible thing anybody can say about a sporting competition. "I wish they'd just tie so nobody felt bad."
And I just like, "Blasphemy!" You do not play all those innings, you do not go to all those practices, you do not sacrifice all that time to tie so nobody feels bad.
There was a famous coach, Herm Edwards, and they were questioning him about a call he made. "Why did you make that call?"
And he just was tired of the reporters, their stupid questions. And this has become classic. They still quote it 30 years later. "You play to win the game. You coach to win the game." The Seahawks won the Super Bowl. They did all those hot, sweaty workouts in July, all that weight training, all that exercise. Why? For that moment of glory at the end.
Paul is saying, "That's what it means to be a disciple of Christ. You run this race, but you don't run to tie. You don't run because it's just fun to run." No, there's all sorts of recreational runners out there. Let them do it. You want to win the gold? Then you get up at 4 o' clock in the morning and you run. You join the Academy and you sacrifice.
And that stuff isn't really worth that much. That's fleeting glory. But, oh, my goodness, you live a discipled life, you live an intentional prayer life, you live as a Christian, as a Christian person... You're anointed then by the Holy Spirit, and you combine those two—you will bear fruit for the kingdom. Whether you see it or not, your life will bear fruit for the kingdom.
You play to win the game. You discipline yourself. Discipline simply means being a disciple. You say your prayers, you read your Bible, you go to church, you give your money away. You do the Christian disciplines, not because you have to, but because of the prize.
And Paul says, "I do that so at the end of the day"—Paul says this—"at the end of the day, after preaching to y'all, I won't be disqualified."
Two schools of thought on that. One is he's talking there about losing his salvation. The other one is he's talking there about losing a reward. "I'll be disqualified from winning the reward that I could have won." And there will be rewards in the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus is quite clear about that. Every cup of cold water given in His name will receive a reward.
And so, as one who does not believe in "once saved, always saved," I could see where he's talking about—he's making the drastic statement that "After everything I've done as an apostle for Christ, and all the beatings I've taken, and all the things and all the churches I planted, I still could apostatize and lose all of this if I just get lazy and sloppy about this."
The other position is that I'm not going to bear all the fruit that I could have borne and just lose that reward. In either case, he says, "I'm not going to do either. I'm going to play to win the game."
One day, dear ones, inescapable, inescapable. Inevitable. It's going to happen. You're going to be face to face with Jesus. You're going to be face to face with Jesus and it'll be, well, you will receive love, you will receive forgiveness, you'll receive acceptance. You're a child of God. You'll be welcomed into the family, and you'll enter into your inheritance. And to whatever level we played the game, we'll probably receive a "well done."
I've often thought there's lots of people that I want to say thank you to when I get to eternity. People who wrote books that I read, you know… Peter Kreeft, whom you were talking about, certainly C.S. Lewis, John Wimber, Jack Hayford… people that I've never met, but who, you know, John Wesley… I've benefited greatly. My great-grandmother, my mother's grandmother, who took her to the Baptist church and prayed for her whole family. Just people that I wanted to say thank you to.
I thought, "Man, some of those people are going to have a long line. They're going to have a long thank you line," you know. And I remember thinking this, and not out of vain glory, but just thinking, "This is how I want to live my life. I want there to be a long line of, 'Hey, besides thanking Jesus, I just kind of want to come and thank you for what you allowed Jesus to do in your life that helped me.'"
I really do want that to be a long line. I think that would be a great reward in terms of heavenly rewards. It's just people saying, "You know, you never knew this, but that time when you said, 'Did anybody hear from God when I said that prayer?' I actually heard from God for the first time. And it opened the door to me hearing from God. Now, I didn't get up and tell you that, even though you implored me to do so, because I was still very mean and selfish at that point in my life, and I let you hang out to dry. But I just want to say right now, thank you for doing that, and I'm sorry I let you hang out to dry."
And I'll say, "You're forgiven. All is well. All is well."
So, we have a great Savior. And the Bible says He endured the cross because He played to win the game. He endured the cross for what? The prize that was set before Him, and the prize that was set before Him was getting back what is rightfully His—you. Getting back His kingdom, getting back His children, taking it back from the usurper and building what He's always wanted to build: a great eternal family, co-heirs with Christ.
And so we get to participate in that. And He told us to come and never forget and feed on His blood and on His body, that He changed the world by a sacrificial death. The God of the universe.
Paul sets an example for us. He doesn't demand his rights and lays down his life for the Corinthians in a way. He's simply following King Jesus. He's simply following King Jesus, who laid down… "Have this attitude in you which was in Christ Jesus," Philippians says. "Although He existed in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but He emptied himself and became a man, taking the form of a servant. And He humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross."
6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, (Philippians 2:6-7, CSB)
And so, Jesus comes and He says, "This is who I am and now I'm highly exalted."
And He tells us the same thing. As we follow His example of descending into humility and love, God then will exalt us to the highest of glory. And so take this meal and say, "Thank you for the great gift." He's standing right there. Just tell Him, "Lord Jesus, thank you. Thank you for your body and blood that was given for me."
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