Why We Share the Gospel
00:00:00.000 | #Winning
00:00:07.100 | Global missions and personal evangelism is all about winning.
00:00:13.860 | Winning is the word that Paul loves to use, as you can see in a text like 1 Corinthians
00:00:18.480 | chapter 9, verses 19-22.
00:00:22.300 | There Paul wrote this, "For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to
00:00:27.940 | all, that I might win more of them.
00:00:31.900 | To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.
00:00:35.820 | To those under the law I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the
00:00:41.120 | law, that I might win those under the law.
00:00:45.960 | To those outside the law I became as one outside the law, not being outside the law of God
00:00:51.640 | but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law.
00:00:57.860 | And to the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak."
00:01:05.100 | So what does Paul mean when he uses "win" five times in four verses?
00:01:11.140 | Here's Pastor John to explain Paul's word and why it matters for our evangelism today.
00:01:17.660 | Now the word "win" in English is ambiguous.
00:01:23.580 | You can win a prize, and you can win an argument.
00:01:31.620 | What does Paul mean by "win"?
00:01:34.860 | Win all these people.
00:01:37.980 | If you win a prize, you gain it.
00:01:40.660 | Got it.
00:01:41.660 | I have it.
00:01:42.660 | Mine.
00:01:43.660 | If you win an argument, you defeat somebody.
00:01:49.620 | What's Paul's meaning?
00:01:51.340 | There's no doubt what his meaning is.
00:01:53.220 | It's on the face of it, but it's even more clear in the original language.
00:01:58.700 | He means I win a prize.
00:02:03.620 | I gain a prize.
00:02:06.300 | How do I know that?
00:02:07.300 | Well, it's just obvious from the context, I think, but test me on this, the hundreds
00:02:13.140 | of you who know your Greek.
00:02:15.420 | "Kerdino" is the verb for "win."
00:02:18.180 | It's almost always, except for two places, here and one other place, it's almost always
00:02:23.460 | translated "gain," like Matthew 16, 26.
00:02:28.500 | What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
00:02:33.380 | That's "kerdino," the word "win" here.
00:02:35.740 | Or Philippians 3, 8.
00:02:37.340 | I count everything as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ.
00:02:42.980 | That's the word "win" here.
00:02:46.860 | So his point is, I want to gain Jews.
00:02:53.260 | I want to gain Gentiles.
00:02:55.500 | I want to gain the weak.
00:02:59.020 | I don't want to gain money.
00:03:02.420 | I don't want to gain power and rights.
00:03:06.680 | The gospel has assured me I get great gain in fully enjoying Christ.
00:03:14.100 | So what can I add to that?
00:03:16.820 | More enjoyers of Christ for me to enjoy.
00:03:20.340 | What does that even mean?
00:03:23.940 | And he tells us what he means by the reward of gaining people in verse 23.
00:03:30.780 | All right, everybody looking down, unless you don't have a Bible.
00:03:36.020 | "I do," 23, "I do it all for the sake of the gospel."
00:03:45.020 | Here comes the purpose statement, "that I may share with them," that is all those gained
00:03:52.300 | people that I gained, "that I may share with them in its blessings."
00:04:00.020 | So he wants to gain more and more people so that he might share in the gospel blessings
00:04:12.540 | with them.
00:04:13.540 | Now, notice the wording carefully.
00:04:16.060 | He does not say what I would expect him to say, and it would be true, "so that they can
00:04:23.780 | share with me in the gospel blessings."
00:04:28.500 | Nothing wrong with that.
00:04:29.500 | That's absolutely true, right?
00:04:31.100 | Missionaries go out to bring people to share with them in the gospel blessings.
00:04:36.580 | That's not what he says.
00:04:40.100 | He says, "that I may share with them in the blessings of the gospel."
00:04:49.100 | I want to gain people, all kinds of people, so that I can be a sharer with them as they
00:04:59.300 | enjoy gospel blessings.
00:05:03.060 | That I might enjoy their enjoyment of Christ.
00:05:09.260 | Now, what does that imply about the nature of joy in gospel blessings?
00:05:21.540 | What I mean by gospel blessings, forgiveness of sins, declaration of your righteousness
00:05:27.500 | before Christ, before God, removal of all condemnation, reconciliation with God, adoption
00:05:35.160 | into his family, fellowship with Christ, hope of eternal life?
00:05:39.180 | What does what Paul just said imply about my enjoyment of that?
00:05:46.500 | Those gospel blessings.
00:05:49.940 | Here's what it implies.
00:05:53.060 | Our gospel joy is authentic and satisfying only if we desire to taste this joy in the
00:06:06.920 | hearts of other people.
00:06:10.760 | Our gospel joy in those blessings is authentic and satisfying only if we desire to taste
00:06:21.440 | those blessings and that joy in the hearts of other people as they experience those blessings.
00:06:31.800 | I want to gain people.
00:06:34.160 | I want to gain people of all kinds in order that I might share in their experience of
00:06:41.320 | gospel joy.
00:06:44.880 | Do you?
00:06:45.880 | Let me just pause here, because this is relevant for missionaries, it's relevant for every
00:06:50.160 | believer and I just have a little practical, earnest plea.
00:06:57.960 | Most of you have shared the gospel with a dad or a mom or a brother or a sister or a
00:07:02.760 | son or a daughter or a roommate or a colleague or a friend or a stranger.
00:07:09.160 | And if you've never done this, I really encourage you to do it.
00:07:12.360 | The last time where the situation allows it, that is there's enough solitude and earnestness,
00:07:20.720 | you sit down across the table at a restaurant and you look them in the eye and you say,
00:07:26.760 | "I want you.
00:07:29.080 | I really want you.
00:07:31.640 | I want you to be my friend forever.
00:07:34.840 | I want you to be my brother, my sister forever.
00:07:38.460 | I want to gain you.
00:07:40.720 | I want your joy to be my joy."
00:07:44.440 | Because they've never had anybody say that to them.
00:07:47.640 | I mean, many people have explained the facts to them, right?
00:07:50.920 | How many people have looked into their eyes and said, "I want you.
00:07:54.720 | I want you to come in.
00:07:57.040 | Be in my life.
00:07:58.040 | Be in my church.
00:07:59.040 | Be in my—forever."
00:08:00.040 | That's, I think, what Paul was saying.
00:08:04.960 | I want to gain people.
00:08:07.960 | I would just say right here to the unbelievers in the room, I want you.
00:08:13.560 | I know about some of you.
00:08:14.800 | We've had emails.
00:08:17.120 | You're here.
00:08:18.660 | You may still be resisting.
00:08:20.600 | And just hear John Piper say, "I want you forever.
00:08:27.600 | My brother, my sister, my friend."
00:08:32.320 | I mean it.
00:08:34.400 | Did you notice where I stopped in my list of people that he is trying to gain?
00:08:40.560 | You should have said, "Why did you stop there?"
00:08:43.080 | Because there was another thing.
00:08:44.960 | I stopped right in the middle of verse 22.
00:08:47.360 | What did I leave out?
00:08:48.760 | Why did you do that?
00:08:50.960 | Let's pick it up in the middle of verse 22.
00:08:53.920 | I have become all things to all people that I might—and he switches from win to save.
00:09:03.320 | That I might save some.
00:09:05.560 | What does save mean for Paul?
00:09:07.600 | I want to save people.
00:09:09.240 | But he doesn't mean that he's the Savior.
00:09:11.440 | He means he's the means of people's salvation.
00:09:14.120 | What does he mean?
00:09:15.480 | Romans 5-9, "Since we are now justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved from
00:09:21.080 | the wrath of God."
00:09:23.080 | Or 1 Thessalonians 1-10, "Jesus saves us from the wrath to come."
00:09:29.200 | Being saved in biblical language means first and fundamentally—those are two important
00:09:35.880 | words—first and fundamentally.
00:09:38.000 | There are other things it means, but first and fundamentally it means God, by means of
00:09:44.960 | the substitution of Christ bearing our condemnation, God saves us from God.
00:09:53.680 | And if you don't get that, I don't know how you get the gospel at all.
00:09:59.200 | We are saved by God from God.
00:10:03.360 | We're saved by the love of God from the wrath of God, and Christ was sent by God to reconcile
00:10:10.800 | us to God and escape, lead us out of wrath.
00:10:17.000 | Then, verse 23, right after 22, he says, "I want to share with them," those that I'm saving,
00:10:29.160 | "I want to share with them in their enjoyment of the gospel blessings."
00:10:36.480 | Meaning now, the reason I left it out so I could emphasize it now, now it means I want
00:10:41.800 | to share with what happens when they hear the verdict in the courtroom, not guilty,
00:10:49.240 | and they run out of the courtroom and do handsprings down the sidewalk in front of the court saying,
00:10:54.960 | "I'm not going to be executed!
00:10:58.400 | I'm not going to be killed!
00:10:59.760 | I'm not going to be spending eternity in hell!
00:11:02.960 | I am free!"
00:11:03.960 | I want to be, Paul said, "I want to be there.
00:11:07.040 | I want to share in that.
00:11:09.720 | I want to watch that happen all over the world with Jews and Gentiles.
00:11:14.880 | Do you?
00:11:15.880 | If it only happens to one person in your life, it will be one of the sweetest moments of
00:11:21.800 | your life to have a person thank you and watch them come into the enjoyment of no condemnation
00:11:28.640 | forever."
00:11:29.640 | Amen and amen.
00:11:31.080 | This clip was pulled from Pastor John's message at the Cross Conference in Louisville on February
00:11:36.440 | 27, 2022.
00:11:38.840 | The message is titled, "The Missionary Miracle."
00:11:42.520 | The Missionary Miracle.
00:11:45.040 | A clip sent to us by David McClellan.
00:11:47.120 | "Greetings, listeners," David writes.
00:11:49.360 | I wanted to share this clip from Cross Conference in 2022 on Paul's motivation for winning souls
00:11:54.840 | to Christ.
00:11:55.840 | This sermon completely changed the way I viewed my own motivation for sharing the gospel with
00:12:01.200 | the lost.
00:12:02.200 | I have shared the gospel with more people in the past six months since hearing this sermon
00:12:07.360 | than I did in 12 years previous as a Christian.
00:12:11.000 | So I wanted to share this clip to help others become emboldened to evangelize.
00:12:15.080 | Thank you so much, Pastor John, for your faithful labors for our risen Savior."
00:12:19.680 | Amen.
00:12:20.680 | Thank you, David, for that testimony.
00:12:22.480 | Thank you for the clip.
00:12:23.920 | And if you have a sermon clip to share, email me.
00:12:26.400 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in
00:12:31.040 | the audio, and tell me what stands out to you.
00:12:33.840 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:12:39.560 | That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:12:44.880 | I am your host, Tony Reinke, and we are rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday.
00:12:50.160 | We'll see you then.
00:12:51.160 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime author and pastor, John
00:12:55.920 | Piper.
00:12:56.920 | We'll see you next time.
00:12:57.480 | Bye.
00:12:57.980 | [music]