1 Corinthians 9:25

1 Corinthians 9:25

I. We may take it as an undoubted fact that Christianity does make a vast difference as regards self-denial, by strengthening and multiplying the motives which induce us to submit to it, and by infusing into each man a higher nature offering a Divine help which tends to make self-denial easy and delightful. But does Christianity, which so much increases our power to endure self-denial, make any alteration in our conception of the nature of self-denial? Does it turn it from a means into an end, or condemn pleasure as being in itself evil?

II. Before answering this I will revert to another consideration which distinguishes the self-denial of the believer from that of the unbeliever. While the agnostic recognises a comparatively superficial duty to man alone, the Christian recognises besides a paramount and exhaustless duty to God. The secret of the Christian's strength is faith, the sight of Him who is invisible. But to maintain this faith with vigour much self-denial is required. With the Christian, as with other men, what is out of sight is in danger of being out of mind, and strong resolution and steady perseverance are needed to overcome this tendency. And besides the self-denial which is thus deliberately chosen, there is the self-denial which is impulsive. It was no thought either of duty or expediency which prompted David's refusal to drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem when his soldiers brought it to him at the hazard of their lives. So it was neither duty nor expediency which caused St. Paul to rejoice that he was allowed to share in the sufferings of Christians; it was that delight to which none of us can be entirely strangers, the delight of sacrificing something for a friend, and so giving a deeper utterance to our affection, and, as it were, realising it to ourselves. I return now to the question I asked before. Must not a change like this, in the scope of self-denial, necessitate a change also in our conception of self-denial? The question is, which is the truer form of Christianity, ascetic Christianity in either of its developments, puritanic or monastic, or what we may call Shakespearian Christianity? In the Bible we never find the ascetic disposition reckoned among the fruits of the Spirit, nor do ascetic practices form a prominent portion of the Christian's armour. The virtues and duties on which our Lord and His apostles lay stress are the virtues and duties of everyday life. The great mischief of wrong asceticism is that it confounds men's ideas of right and wrong, and shuts them up in a little ecclesiastical world of their own, where vice and virtue are thrust into the background by a crowd of imaginary sins and imaginary virtues. Of such a system it may be said that Christianity has had few more dangerous enemies, whether we regard it in its effect on those who have accepted it or on those who have been repelled by it.

J. B. Mayor, Oxford and Cambridge Journal,Feb. 26th, 1880.

1 Corinthians 9:25

Christian Temperance.

I. To be temperate, in the primary sense of the word, is to be under command, self-governed, to feel the reins of our desires, and to be able to check them. It is obvious that this of itself implies a certain amount of prudence, to know when, at what point, to exercise this control. There is such a thing as negative as well as positive intemperance. God made His world for our use; He gave us our faculties to be employed. If we use not the one and employ not the other, then, though we do not usually call such an insensibility by the name of intemperance, it certainly is a breach of temperance, the very essence of which is to use God's bounties in moderation, to employ our faculties and desires, but so as to retain the guidance and check over them. And such being the pure moral definition of temperance, let us proceed to base it on Christian grounds, to ask whyand howthe disciple of Christ must be temperate.

II. Our text will give us ample reason why. The disciple of Christ is a combatant, contending in a conflict in which he has need of all the exercise of all his powers. He has ever, in the midst of a visible world, to be ruled and guided by his sense of a world invisible. For this purpose he needs to be vigilant and active. He cannot afford to have his faculties dulled by excess, or his energies relaxed by sloth. He strives for the mastery, and therefore he must be temperate in all things.

III. A Christian man must be temperate in his religion. It is not a passion, carrying him out of his place in life and its appointed duties; nor a fancy, leading him to all kinds of wild notions, requiring constant novelty to feed it and keep it from wearying him; nor, again, is it a charm, to be sedulously gone through as a balm to his conscience. It is a matter demanding the best use of his best faculties. Temperance must also be shown in the intellectual life, in opinions and in language. The end of all is our sanctification by God's Spirit to God's glory; the perfection, not of stoical morality, but of Christian holiness.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. v., p. 199.

References: 1 Corinthians 9:26. E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion,p. 191. 1 Corinthians 9:27. C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts,p. 108. 1 Corinthians 10:1. G. T. Coster, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 141. 1 Corinthians 10:1. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. v., p. 481; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 89. 1 Corinthians 10:1. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 22; vol. viii., p. 88. 1 Corinthians 10:3; 1 Corinthians 10:4. J. Edmunds, Fifteen Sermons,p. 164. 1 Corinthians 10:4. C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons,p. 282; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice,p. 176; C. J. Elliott, Church of England Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 53; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. iii., p. 87. 1 Corinthians 10:6. Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Church of England Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 109. 1 Corinthians 10:7. T. Wilkinson, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 1; R. L. Browne, Sussex Sermons,p. 95.