Cross-Shaped Freedom: 1 Corinthians 8-15 Sermon Series

During my time teaching at a Bible college in Southeast Asia, a student approached me after a class on the atonement. He said “You talked today about the possibility of complete forgiveness and freedom from sin. I’ve never experienced or felt that.”

So I asked, “Oh, how do you feel?” And he said, “I feel burdened. Like I’m weighed down by my sin debt. When I think about God, I feel scared; I feel dread! But today you said it could be different. How can I get that?”

What followed was an exciting discussion about Christ and his work. Here was someone discovering for the first time the wonderful freedom that Christ brings.

“Here was someone discovering for the first time the wonderful freedom that Christ brings.”

His transformation in the weeks that followed was remarkable. He went from someone who was troubled to someone who was filled with joy, from someone who was fear-driven to someone who was motivated by love.

The transformation that played out in his life is one that has played out in countless lives through history, continuing to this day. When we grasp what Christ has done for us, it changes what we want to do with the rest of our lives.

As we discover the profound freedom that is now ours in Christ (a freedom from sin’s power and penalty), at the same time we also find bubbling up from within a new desire to use that freedom for a particular purpose: the advance of the gospel.

Cross-Shaped Freedom Series

At the start of 2026, we are preaching through 1 Corinthians 8-15 at SMBC Principal’s Hour in a series called Cross-Shaped Freedom. This is a continuation of an earlier 2023 series, Cross-Shaped Community: 1 Corinthians 1-7.

It is my prayer that as we grow in our knowledge and wisdom through studying this letter, we also grow in our willingness to use that knowledge for God’s glory.

To understand why Paul writes this letter to the Corinthians, it helps to know a little of the story behind it.

Paul and the Church at Corinth

The year is AD 55. Paul is in Ephesus. Some four years earlier, he had established the church in Corinth, and as its founding pastor he is deeply invested in them.

In Acts, we find Paul constantly travelling and preaching around Macedonia, driven from town to town by fierce opposition and persecution.

But then the Holy Spirit tells him to stay in one city for a full 18 months, persevering in teaching and proclaiming the good news of Jesus. That city is Corinth.

There, God grants Paul a period of peace and protection from opposition – total freedom to preach the gospel – because as God told him, “I have many people in this city.” Those are good days in Corinth. Paul cares deeply about the Corinthians.

“To each of these issues, Paul’s letter brings the same message: the gospel gives us freedom, but it’s freedom for a purpose.”

But years later, when he is now in Ephesus, he receives an update. The news is not good. “My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.” (1 Corinthians 1:11)

The Corinthians are no longer experiencing freedom and peace. And their troubles aren’t coming from the outside, they’re coming from internal divisions. They couldn’t seem to agree on what their new Christian freedom should look like. They were splintering over issues like food on the table, ways to worship, which spiritual teacher to follow, and who received which spiritual gifts.

To each of these issues, Paul’s letter brings the same message: the gospel gives us freedom, but it’s freedom for a purpose.

Culture Shaped Freedom

The word “freedom” is one we need to think carefully about, because our culture has already shaped the way we hear it, often in ways we don’t realise.

Throughout history, we see at times the church has had significant cultural blind spots that contradict the gospel by the way they lived. Like Christians in Nazi Germany supporting Hitler, or Christians in America practicing violent slavery and believing it was sanctioned by God.

It makes you wonder, where might our blind spots be? I want to suggest that one of them might be the way we think about freedom.

Our culture has a particular way of thinking about freedom, and it’s part of a bigger worldview that people sometimes call expressive individualism. The idea is this: my fulfillment and flourishing comes from discovering my true, authentic self, and then expressing that through exercising my personal freedom.

“Does that sound familiar? It should – it’s the plot of almost every Disney movie ever made, and it’s the message behind almost every advertisement we encounter.”

Does that sound familiar? It should – it’s the plot of almost every Disney movie ever made, and it’s the message behind almost every advertisement we encounter.

One of our federal parliamentarians put it plainly in a speech to parliament: “I believe there is no greater value than that of freedom, for nothing else guarantees happiness and fulfillment like freedom.”

According to this worldview, one of the worst things that can happen is that your freedoms are restricted or taken away, because that is to stymie you on your path to fulfillment. And so the very last thing you would want to do is voluntarily give them up.

And yet, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians, that is exactly what Christians do. We choose to give up our rights and freedoms. ^“Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” 1 Corinthians 9:19

A Cross-Shaped Freedom

If we’ve been raised swimming in the waters of expressive individualism, and most of us have, we’re going to find this really hard. To swim against that cultural tide, what we need is an alternative worldview. We need a cross-shaped worldview of freedom.

That is what Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians. He helps us embrace a cross-shaped freedom by teaching us why we might willingly choose to give up our rights and freedoms.

“It is freedom oriented toward love, toward the gospel, and toward the flourishing of others.”

It’s not because freedom doesn’t matter, but because in Christ, freedom has a purpose greater than self-expression. It is freedom oriented toward love, toward the gospel, and toward the flourishing of others.

“I have the right to do anything,” you say – but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” – but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.” 1 Corinthians 10:23-24

Freedom Beyond Self-Fulfillment

Ministry is not about our self-fulfilment or personal advance; it’s about the advance of the gospel. And if advancing it requires us to surrender rights, let’s be ready to do that.

When you look at places here in Australia and around the world where gospel workers are needed, the work conditions can be pretty difficult. Taking up a particular role might require giving up all sorts of rights and freedoms: proximity to family, access to good healthcare, food and drink that you love, the language you can best express yourself in, maybe even political freedoms in some countries. It might mean going to some of those places from which others are fleeing.

“That we too might willingly give up whatever it takes, so that more and more people might know the true freedom found only at the foot of the cross.”

From the perspective of our culture and of expressive individualism, it’s crazy to do that. To go to those places is to limit your potential for happiness and self-expression. But in the world of 1 Corinthians, it makes perfect sense.

As we work through this letter together, my prayer is this: may God, by his Spirit, give us that kind of love, that we too might willingly give up whatever it takes, so that more and more people might know the true freedom found only at the foot of the cross.