#Winning Global missions and personal evangelism is all about winning. Winning is the word that Paul loves to use, as you can see in a text like 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verses 19-22. There Paul wrote this, "For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law, not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law.

And to the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak." So what does Paul mean when he uses "win" five times in four verses? Here's Pastor John to explain Paul's word and why it matters for our evangelism today. Now the word "win" in English is ambiguous. You can win a prize, and you can win an argument.

What does Paul mean by "win"? Win all these people. If you win a prize, you gain it. Got it. I have it. Mine. If you win an argument, you defeat somebody. What's Paul's meaning? There's no doubt what his meaning is. It's on the face of it, but it's even more clear in the original language.

He means I win a prize. I gain a prize. How do I know that? Well, it's just obvious from the context, I think, but test me on this, the hundreds of you who know your Greek. "Kerdino" is the verb for "win." It's almost always, except for two places, here and one other place, it's almost always translated "gain," like Matthew 16, 26.

What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? That's "kerdino," the word "win" here. Or Philippians 3, 8. I count everything as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ. That's the word "win" here. So his point is, I want to gain Jews.

I want to gain Gentiles. I want to gain the weak. I don't want to gain money. I don't want to gain power and rights. The gospel has assured me I get great gain in fully enjoying Christ. So what can I add to that? More enjoyers of Christ for me to enjoy.

What does that even mean? And he tells us what he means by the reward of gaining people in verse 23. All right, everybody looking down, unless you don't have a Bible. "I do," 23, "I do it all for the sake of the gospel." Here comes the purpose statement, "that I may share with them," that is all those gained people that I gained, "that I may share with them in its blessings." So he wants to gain more and more people so that he might share in the gospel blessings with them.

Now, notice the wording carefully. He does not say what I would expect him to say, and it would be true, "so that they can share with me in the gospel blessings." Nothing wrong with that. That's absolutely true, right? Missionaries go out to bring people to share with them in the gospel blessings.

That's not what he says. He says, "that I may share with them in the blessings of the gospel." I want to gain people, all kinds of people, so that I can be a sharer with them as they enjoy gospel blessings. That I might enjoy their enjoyment of Christ. Now, what does that imply about the nature of joy in gospel blessings?

What I mean by gospel blessings, forgiveness of sins, declaration of your righteousness before Christ, before God, removal of all condemnation, reconciliation with God, adoption into his family, fellowship with Christ, hope of eternal life? What does what Paul just said imply about my enjoyment of that? Those gospel blessings. Here's what it implies.

Our gospel joy is authentic and satisfying only if we desire to taste this joy in the hearts of other people. Our gospel joy in those blessings is authentic and satisfying only if we desire to taste those blessings and that joy in the hearts of other people as they experience those blessings.

I want to gain people. I want to gain people of all kinds in order that I might share in their experience of gospel joy. Do you? Let me just pause here, because this is relevant for missionaries, it's relevant for every believer and I just have a little practical, earnest plea.

Most of you have shared the gospel with a dad or a mom or a brother or a sister or a son or a daughter or a roommate or a colleague or a friend or a stranger. And if you've never done this, I really encourage you to do it. The last time where the situation allows it, that is there's enough solitude and earnestness, you sit down across the table at a restaurant and you look them in the eye and you say, "I want you.

I really want you. I want you to be my friend forever. I want you to be my brother, my sister forever. I want to gain you. I want your joy to be my joy." Because they've never had anybody say that to them. I mean, many people have explained the facts to them, right?

How many people have looked into their eyes and said, "I want you. I want you to come in. Be in my life. Be in my church. Be in my—forever." That's, I think, what Paul was saying. I want to gain people. I would just say right here to the unbelievers in the room, I want you.

I know about some of you. We've had emails. You're here. You may still be resisting. And just hear John Piper say, "I want you forever. My brother, my sister, my friend." I mean it. Did you notice where I stopped in my list of people that he is trying to gain?

You should have said, "Why did you stop there?" Because there was another thing. I stopped right in the middle of verse 22. What did I leave out? Why did you do that? Let's pick it up in the middle of verse 22. I have become all things to all people that I might—and he switches from win to save.

That I might save some. What does save mean for Paul? I want to save people. But he doesn't mean that he's the Savior. He means he's the means of people's salvation. What does he mean? Romans 5-9, "Since we are now justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved from the wrath of God." Or 1 Thessalonians 1-10, "Jesus saves us from the wrath to come." Being saved in biblical language means first and fundamentally—those are two important words—first and fundamentally.

There are other things it means, but first and fundamentally it means God, by means of the substitution of Christ bearing our condemnation, God saves us from God. And if you don't get that, I don't know how you get the gospel at all. We are saved by God from God.

We're saved by the love of God from the wrath of God, and Christ was sent by God to reconcile us to God and escape, lead us out of wrath. Then, verse 23, right after 22, he says, "I want to share with them," those that I'm saving, "I want to share with them in their enjoyment of the gospel blessings." Meaning now, the reason I left it out so I could emphasize it now, now it means I want to share with what happens when they hear the verdict in the courtroom, not guilty, and they run out of the courtroom and do handsprings down the sidewalk in front of the court saying, "I'm not going to be executed!

I'm not going to be killed! I'm not going to be spending eternity in hell! I am free!" I want to be, Paul said, "I want to be there. I want to share in that. I want to watch that happen all over the world with Jews and Gentiles. Do you?

If it only happens to one person in your life, it will be one of the sweetest moments of your life to have a person thank you and watch them come into the enjoyment of no condemnation forever." Amen and amen. This clip was pulled from Pastor John's message at the Cross Conference in Louisville on February 27, 2022.

The message is titled, "The Missionary Miracle." The Missionary Miracle. A clip sent to us by David McClellan. "Greetings, listeners," David writes. I wanted to share this clip from Cross Conference in 2022 on Paul's motivation for winning souls to Christ. This sermon completely changed the way I viewed my own motivation for sharing the gospel with the lost.

I have shared the gospel with more people in the past six months since hearing this sermon than I did in 12 years previous as a Christian. So I wanted to share this clip to help others become emboldened to evangelize. Thank you so much, Pastor John, for your faithful labors for our risen Savior." Amen.

Thank you, David, for that testimony. Thank you for the clip. And if you have a sermon clip to share, email me. Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio, and tell me what stands out to you. Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. I am your host, Tony Reinke, and we are rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime author and pastor, John Piper. We'll see you next time. Bye.