The worker - Chambers, Oswald
1 Corinthians 9:11–27
The Matter
Plant every man on the Rock, and plant the whole
man there.
(a) Amid a Crowd of Paltry Things (1 Corinthians 9:11–15)
The first thing a worker has to learn is how to be God’s noble man or woman amid a crowd of paltry things. A Christian worker must never make this plea—“If only I were somewhere else!” The only test that a worker is Christ’s witness is that he never becomes mean5 from contact with mean people any more than he becomes sinful from contact with sinful people. We are not workers for God by our own choice (see John 15:16). Many deliberately choose to be workers for God, but they have no matter of God’s mighty grace in them, no matter from God’s mighty
word. The pattern for God’s worker is that he is entrusted with a mission—for example, Moses and the Apostle Paul. We have to be in God’s hand so that He can plant men on the Rock as He has planted us, not by our testimony only, but because we are being made co-workers with God.
(b) Amid a Creed of Powerful Things (1 Corinthians 9:16–17)
Unless we have the right matter in our minds intel-lectually and in our hearts affectionately, we will be hustled out of usefulness to God. Keep the note of greatness in your creed: Whom do I believe Jesus Christ is? What do I believe sin is? What do I believe God can do with sin? What do I believe is God’s purpose for the human race? Face yourself with one
central Fact only, the Lord Jesus Christ, His Life and Death and Resurrection. Every Christian must testify, testimony is the nature of the life; but for preaching there must be the agonising grip of God’s hand, something akin to verse 16. The whole of my life, says Paul, is in the grip of God for this one thing, I cannot turn to the right hand or to the left, I am here for one purpose, to preach the gospel. How many of us are held like that? The note of the majority is verse 17, that is why there is so much mediocrity, so much lazy work for God. “I have chosen you”—that is where the note of greatness is struck out of your creed
The manner
However things move, they do not change us.
(a) The external crush of things (1 Corinthians 9:1819)
God buries his men in the midst of paltry things, no monuments are erected to them, they are ignored, not because they are unworthy but because they are in the place where they cannot be seen. Who could see Paul in Corinth? Paul only became marvellous after he had gone. All gods men are ordinary men made extraordinary by the matter he has given them. God puts his workers where he puts his son. This is the age of the humiliation of the saints. Manner is the outcome of matter. Pauls whole soul and mind and heart were taken up with the great matter of what Jesus Christ came to do, he never lost sight of that one thing (see l Corinthians 2:2).
B) the ethical character of things
(1 Corinthians 9:2027)
I am become all things to all men, that i may by all means save some (1 Corinthians 9:22 rv ). The worker who is not chosen by god says, i am all things to all men, and nothing in particular to any man. The stamp of the worker gripped by god is that, slowly and surely, one here and another there is being won for god.
The worker chosen by god has to believe what god wishes him to believe, though it cost agony in the process; the worker who chooses to work for god may believe what he likes. It is the latter class who exploit the bible.
Here, in this college, god can break or bend or mould, just as he chooses. You do not know why he is doing it; he is doing it for one purpose only, that he may be able to say, this is my man, my woman. Never choose to be a worker, but when once god has put his call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left. God will do with you what he never did with you before the call came; he will do with you what he is not doing with other people. Let him have his way.