Others Before Self (1 Corinthians 9)

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

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This morning we're going to be talking about 1st Corinthians chapter 9.

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Now 1st Corinthians chapter 9 is continuing the argument that Paul was making in 1st Corinthians chapter 8.

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In 1st Corinthians chapter 8, Paul was dealing with the fact that when we are dealing with a weaker brother that we ought to be willing to consider that brother and love that brother enough that if that means to at times put a constraint on our own freedoms that we'd be willing to do that out of love for our brother.

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And so really the theme of today's lesson is others before self.

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And so I want you to consider a story of something that happened just a few years ago.

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A man by the name of Saman Gunan, and I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but this is a situation that happened in Taiwan.

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Over in Taiwan there were 12 boys and there are 12 soccer players and their soccer coach were trapped in a very very deep cave.

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They had gone into the cave when it was relatively safe.

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A flash flood had occurred which caused all of the entrances and exits to be flooded.

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And so these boys were trapped two and a half miles inside of the earth.

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And so there was a great rescue attempt that that happened and the boys ended up being saved, I believed.

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But it was only after several weeks of being underground.

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And one of the people that went and saved them was a former Navy SEAL who was a diver and he dived down into the water.

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He went and he brought them much-needed oxygen because the oxygen in the place that they were in was running out.

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And so he brought them the oxygen and saved them.

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But unfortunately on his way out, his oxygen supply was depleted and he was unable to reach the surface before he ended up dying as a result of a lack of oxygen.

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This is a terrible story.

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It's a very sad story.

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But yet at the same time there's great nobility in it.

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There is, in the tragedy there is heroicism.

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And so when we look at Mr.

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Goonan and what he did, we say, you know what? Yes, it's a tragedy that he died, but he died because he put others before himself.

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He died because he was willing to put himself into danger for the sake of his concern for another's well-being.

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And so that is a good example for us today.

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And albeit it's not a biblical example, but it's certainly an example of what Jesus said that greater love has no man than this, that he'd be willing to lay down his life for his friends.

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And of course Jesus was specifically talking about himself in that instance because he went and he gave himself for us on the cross.

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But yet that same principle can be extrapolated out to to anyone who's willing to give their life for the sake of someone else being able to live.

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That is always seen as a heroic thing.

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And so we honor those people who are willing to do that.

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And so today when we're looking at the text and Paul is continuing this argument of others before self, we need to be encouraged to think about what that means in our Christian walk.

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How are we, whether it be in the church, whether it be in our own families, or whether it even be outside of the church in our relationships with others, how are we willing to put others before self? Later in the chapter Paul's going to say when he was with the Jews he was as a Jew and when he was with the Gentiles he was as a Gentile.

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He became all things to all men that he might save some of them.

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And that that passage has been kind of confusing because some people think that that means well if you want to win drunks you got to be a drunk.

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I'm sure that's not what Paul was referring to.

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But what Paul was saying was that he showed deference to the limitations and to the the and to the things that made other people uncomfortable.

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Therefore he was willing to set aside certain freedoms if it meant that he could have more freedom in sharing the gospel.

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And so today the the theme of the lesson is others before self.

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Are we willing to put others before ourselves? I would hope that we would be.

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I would hope that especially in this very difficult time of the health crisis that's facing our nation and and and all of these things.

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Are we thinking about others more than we're thinking about ourselves? Are we thinking about other church members that may have needs? Are we thinking about our friends and family that may need us to be an encouragement to them? Are we putting others before self? That's that's my prayer for today.

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As you can tell I'm doing it a little differently today.

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I'm having my coffee while I'm on the way to the the office.

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I have some work to do in the office today.

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And so as I'm heading up there, I thought I would just take you with me and enjoy this time of study in the car.

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I hope this has been an encouragement to you.

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And I hope every day that we do these lessons that they're an encouragement.

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I want to also ask that if you do like what I am doing that you would hit the like button, hit the thumbs up down at the bottom, and comment on the video.

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Let me know what you think.

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Ask questions.

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I'd love to interact with you.

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And if you haven't already, subscribe to Sovereign Grace Family Church's YouTube page.

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This helps us to reach a larger group of people and it helps to to put our videos out there more.

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So I would appreciate it.

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Again, if you would thumbs up, comment, and subscribe.

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If you're on Facebook, you can like and share this video and that will put it in the put it in front of more people.

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Again, thank you for watching.

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I am Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.

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God bless you.