The Soul Winner

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I want to invite you to open your Bibles and stand with me as we read the Word of God together.
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We stand to give honor and reverence to the Word, and we're going to be reading this morning from 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verses 19 to 23.
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We have been in a lengthy exposition going verse by verse through this text, and this is where we have arrived today at verse 19.
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For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.
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To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.
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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.
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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.
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To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.
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I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.
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I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
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Father God, I thank you for your word.
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I pray now that as I seek to preach the word that you would keep me from error, fill me with your spirit, use me to preach your word properly and truly.
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I pray that as the word is preached, that you would open the hearts of everyone that hears, those who are believers, Lord, that they would be encouraged, that they would also be challenged, exhorted and convicted by the word.
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And Lord, for those who are not believers, who have not yet bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, that today might be the day that you would break their hearts over the anvil of their own sin, expose them to their need for a savior and show them that Christ is the only savior.
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For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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And we pray all this in his name.
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Amen.
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The title of today's message is the soul winner, the soul winner in this church, we make no pretense about who we are when it comes to our theology.
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Theology is very important.
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We we we we have a sort of an unofficial slogan that theology matters and we make no pretense about our theology.
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We are a reformed church in our very name.
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We are known as Sovereign Grace Family Church, a reference to the authority and the power of God and salvation.
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And Sovereign Grace itself is clearly reformed language.
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And as a reformed preacher, there are certain theological assumptions which people can make about my preaching.
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There's going to be a focus on the sovereignty of God.
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There's going to be a focus on the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ.
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There's going to be a centrality of the Bible.
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These are all hallmarks of historic reformed teaching.
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A focus among the reformed is our commitment to a belief in that salvation is a 100 percent work of God.
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Salvation is not something I contribute to.
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Salvation is something I receive.
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God is the worker in my salvation.
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I am the beneficiary.
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He gives me salvation.
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He grants me new life.
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I was dead in my trespasses and sins, and God awoke my dead soul and gave me the gift of faith.
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And even faith itself is not my contribution to my salvation, but it is the very work of God in my heart.
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The Bible says no one, Jesus said in John 6, 65, no one can come to me unless it be granted him by my father.
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God does the work of my even coming to the Lord because of this.
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We also know.
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That when it comes to the subject of evangelism, the conversion of the soul is the work of God.
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We cannot save anyone.
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Only God can save a soul.
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And with that in mind, a question is sometimes raised among reformed people, and we know that sometimes the word reformed is the word Calvinist is thrown out there a bit.
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So we'll use that term for a moment.
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People say, well, should Calvinists use the word soul winner? Should Calvinists use the word soul winning? I mean, I mean, it's a good question, because if we think about God is the real soul winner, God is the one who's actually saving the soul.
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Should we use that term? And I don't even know if you're familiar with that term, but that term is pretty popular in certain circles.
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In fact, there's a book by Charles Spurgeon himself, a reformed or Calvinist preacher.
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It was called The Soul Winner.
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I read it this week.
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It was part of my study and it was a very deep read.
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And it makes some ask the question, is it an appropriate term? Because we know that the evangelist isn't actually the one winning the soul, at least not from the standpoint of the conversion.
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If a soul is to be won, it's won by the spirit of God.
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So is the term soul winning appropriate? I want to contend this morning that it is, that the term soul winner or soul winning is an appropriate term because it comes from the Bible.
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We use language that comes from the Bible and the term soul winning or soul winner is actually found in Scripture.
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In Proverbs 1130, it says, The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that wins souls is wise.
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In Matthew 1815, when Jesus is talking about church discipline, he says that if your brother sins against you, you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.
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And if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
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Language is used there of winning someone.
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First Peter 3.1, it says, Wives, be subject to your husband so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.
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So the word winning is used again, a little different context, but still the same idea.
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You've got an unbelieving person.
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You've got a believing person.
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She is to behave in such a way that is godly representation of the gospel to him.
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And maybe by that she will win him to Christ.
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James chapter five, verse 20, says, Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death.
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The word win is not there, but the idea is the same.
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If we if we can, if we can get the center back from his sin, we'll save his soul from death.
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We're winning him from death to life.
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Yet there is an objection by some who still, even with the Bible's clear language and we'll see very clearly today, the apostle Paul says, I became this to this person.
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I became this to this person.
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I became that to that person so that I might win them.
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And he uses that language and some people say, well, well, well, we have to cross our theological T's and dot our theological I's and we have to be very careful how we use language.
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Pastor, we certainly don't want to miscommunicate the truth and we don't want to be very, very careful how we use language.
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And so we don't want to use this word.
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So we're going to make people confused that somehow they're the ones doing the work of winning the soul.
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It's God who wins the soul.
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Yes, it is God who wins the soul.
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But I want you to understand something this morning and put this in your note, file it away and things that you heard that are important because this is one of them.
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There is a difference between Calvinism and fatalism.
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Reformed theology or Calvinism does proclaim that the Bible teaches that God is in control of all things, even the fact that those who get saved are ultimately under the authority of God.
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But he has done so in a way that does not make our involvement irrelevant.
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God's salvation by grace through faith does not make our petition or participation irrelevant.
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God has ordained the end, but he has also ordained the means to the end.
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He has ordained the process that causes us to arrive at certain goals.
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I've used this example.
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Some of you heard it, but my children were all born on a specific day.
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I can never remember because I have five, but I but I know they're all they all have a birthday.
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That birthday was ordained by God.
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You realize that the Bible says in Psalm 139 that he fashioned us in our mother's womb and he counted our days before there even was one and he appointed them.
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So God knew the day my child was going to be born.
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He knew the day that she was going to be brought into my life.
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But guess what? There was a physical contribution made to that event.
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That was a necessary contribution.
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Had it not happened, the child would not have been born.
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Now, let's not go down the road of what ifs on that, because God is sovereign both in the ends and in the means.
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God was sovereign over how it happened and he was sovereign that it happened.
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Fatalism denies that.
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Fatalism says this, says because God has determined the ends, our participation is meaningless.
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And in certain churches that adopt fatalism, what we might call the hardshell churches or the hyper Calvinistic churches, they believe that evangelism should not be practiced and that we shouldn't go out seeking to win souls because ultimately that's God's business.
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One of the great missionaries who actually one of the men who was the first man to really start the missionary movement was William Carey, and he was told by the hyper Calvinistic leadership in his church, son, if God sees fit to save the heathen, he'll do it without you.
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And so the idea was God will do what he's going to do.
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You don't have to have any participation.
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Let me tell you this, I am not a fatalist.
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God has called us to obey him.
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You can call me a Calvinist.
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Don't call me a fatalist.
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And I think it's so clear in our passage today that Paul does say.
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That we participate in the work of God.
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In the winning of men to the kingdom, are we the ones who win? No, but are we used of God as participants in the winning? Absolutely.
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If it weren't so, why would we go to the fishing hole? Why would we go set up for 10 days at the fair and hand out 3000 tracks over 10 days to try to put the gospel in the hands of men? If we didn't feel like that was relevant to the salvation of their soul? Why would we go, Brother Mike, and preach on the street if we didn't believe that somebody might, by the grace of God, hear that word, be preached and believe? How will they hear without a preacher? For faith cometh by hearing.
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And hearing by the word of Christ, so we hear in the Bible our command to participation, our command to be soul winners, to go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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So having said that, I want to now look at the text because this is Paul's statement about his own participation in soul winning.
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This is Paul, the soul winner.
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By the way, if you wonder who the title references, it's Paul.
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Who is the soul winner in this text? It's him.
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And if you don't remember the context, we've been going through the the book of 1 Corinthians, chapter 8, Paul was discussing the problem that had arisen among the 1 Corinthians of eating meat sacrificed to idols.
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And remember, he said that if you have an opportunity to eat meat sacrificed to idols and it's going to offend your brother, you ought not do it because your brother is more important than your liberty.
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Your brother is more important than your freedom.
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And if your freedom gets in the way of your brothers coming closer to Christ, then you need to give up your freedom on behalf of your brother.
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And Paul, in chapter 9, the first few verses of chapter 9, he uses himself as an example.
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He says, I have the freedom to get supplemented in my income for the gospel.
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He talks about the fact that ministers can be paid for their work.
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He said, but I'm not taking a dime because I don't want anything that I take to be a stumbling block to anyone.
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So he didn't take one cent from the Corinthians for his ministry because he did not want anyone to be able to say Paul's in it for the money.
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So he uses himself as an example.
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And this leads us up to verse 19.
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And in verse 19, he says, for though I am free from all, meaning no one had the right to coerce him, no one was exercising any financial authority over him.
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No one could say, Paul, I'm holding the money bags.
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You can do only what I tell you.
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And I've told you stories about that.
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People in the church sometimes think because they give a little money, they have all the authority.
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Right, that's not the case.
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And Paul says, for I am for though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them.
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You see, there's a there's a sense in which the apostle Paul exercise a tremendous amount of freedom in the gospel.
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No one had the power to coerce him.
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He was free in Christ.
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And he tells us himself, if Christ makes you free, you're what free indeed.
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Paul had a tremendous amount of freedom in the gospel, yet Paul did not use his freedom in Christ to do simply as he pleased.
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Instead, he used his freedom to be what others needed him to be, to lead them to Christ.
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He was free to do what he was free to do, what pleased him, and yet what pleased him was the winning of souls.
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So he was more concerned about his brethren than his liberty.
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He was more concerned about his brothers than what he wanted.
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Oh, for a church, oh, for this church.
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To be that, to be so concerned about our brethren, that we're willing to put them before us, that we're willing to put others before self.
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And so in verses 20 to 22, Paul outlines how he did whatever was needful to win souls.
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And he talks about four groups of people.
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He talks about the Jews.
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He talks about those under the law.
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He talks about those not under the law.
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And he talks about the weak.
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So we have the Jews, those under the law, those not under the law and the weak.
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So let's look first at what he says about the Jews, he says in verse 22, the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to win Jews to those under the law.
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I became as one under the law.
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Well, let's stop right there.
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Just look at where he says to the Jews.
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I became as a Jew in order to win Jews.
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Why does he say he became as a Jew? Wasn't Paul a Jew? Actually, he was, and in fact, he says in another book in the New Testament that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, that he was of good stock, not just a Jew, but a a a devout Jew.
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He was a Pharisee.
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He learned at the feet of Gamaliel, the great teacher among the Jews.
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He considered himself of good stock, of good pedigree among the Jewish people.
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But here he says to the Jews, I became as a Jew.
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What does that mean? Paul was already a Jew.
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Well, Paul was also a Christian.
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Paul had converted to Jesus Christ and in converting to Jesus Christ, Paul was free from the Mosaic covenant.
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People say, oh, wait, I don't like that.
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I don't like to say Paul was free.
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What do you mean? Does that mean the Old Testament is irrelevant? No, the Old Testament will never be irrelevant.
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But the covenant that Christ gave is a new covenant.
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And when we are in the new covenant, we are no longer a part of the old covenant.
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And in fact, if you need proof of this, read Hebrews.
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And if you don't get it, read it again.
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And if you don't get it, read it again until it finally sinks in that it says in Hebrews that when the new came, it made the old obsolete.
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This is the reason why you can go to to Bono's and have your pig sandwich and it's not going to affect the the countenance between you and God.
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I watched a video this week with a man who said that you must keep the law to be saved.
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That was the very first words out of his mouth because he was talking about this text.
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I like to listen to people that I would disagree with just to hear the arguments that they're making.
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I don't if you only listen to people that are just like you and you're going to be an echo chamber and that's not good for you.
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If you only listen to people that agree with you, then you're never going to learn anything.
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You're never going to be challenged in what you believe.
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So I was listening to this guy.
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And the very first words out of his mouth was that Paul did keep the law.
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He was a Jew.
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And if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been saved because keeping the law is necessary to be saved.
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What's the response that Paul himself had to that? If you break the law at any point, it was James who said, if you break the law at one point, you've broken the whole law.
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But Paul basically says the same thing in Romans.
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Those who say they have the law but don't keep the law demonstrate that they are guilty of having broken God's law.
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In fact, Romans chapter two goes through this.
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The problem with the Jews is they had the law and yet they did not keep it.
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I've done this a thousand times with people, they say, well, I keep God's law.
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No, you don't.
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The law can be distilled to love you, Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.
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Love your neighbors yourself.
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You've never done that perfectly one day in your whole life.
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You've never done either one of those perfectly in your whole life.
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Well, God doesn't expect me to be perfect.
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Where'd you get that? Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.
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I can't do that.
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That's why you need Jesus.
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I mean, that's the answer.
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The call is to perfection.
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You can't make it.
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You need a substitute who was perfect.
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And that's Jesus.
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And that perfect substitute went and died on the cross, a death he didn't deserve so that he would take the punishment that you did deserve, not the punishment of the Romans or the Jews, but the very wrath of God that was poured out on him so that now you can be given a righteousness that is not yours.
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The apostle Paul says a righteousness that does not come by keeping the law, but a righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
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Is the law irrelevant? No, the law shows us the heart and nature of God.
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It calls us to walk up rightly.
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There's good in the law, but the law will never save you.
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And when that man said, you've got to keep the law to be saved, I said he is preaching a false gospel.
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He's preaching a Galatians gospel.
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The very men of the book of Galatia that Paul preached against who preached a false gospel.
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So what does Paul mean to the Jews? I became as a Jew.
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What he meant was when he was with the Jewish brethren so as to not bring offense to them and when he went among the Jews and by the way, the Bible says he went to the Jews when first he went to the Jews first, anytime he would go into a new town, even though he was the apostle to the Gentiles, where would he go? The synagogue.
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And he would reason in the synagogue with the Jews.
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Why? Because he wanted to save his brethren.
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In fact, in Romans chapter nine, he said, if I could give my if I could give my eternity and it meant their salvation, I would do it.
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And I know it's not a lie because it's in the word of God.
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I know that's not an exaggeration from the lips of the apostle Paul because it's in the word of God.
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So when he was with the Jewish people, he did not bring an offense to them by behaving as a man with the liberty of Christ.
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But he bound himself to the same binds that they had so as to not bring an offense to them.
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And the greatest example of this is in Acts chapter 16.
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You see, in Acts 15, we have the first church council, the first church council meets in Jerusalem to discuss the question of whether or not Gentiles had to be circumcised.
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The big question of whether or not Gentiles had to be circumcised because some Christians were saying they have to be circumcised to become Christians, meaning you have to be a Jew first to become a Christian.
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The apostle Paul goes there.
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They have a discussion with the apostles.
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And then James, who is the preacher, the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem, stands up and gives a final judgment and says, no, that's not true.
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They don't have to be circumcised.
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But then in the very next chapter, Paul is getting ready to go out on a missionary journey.
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He chooses Timothy to go with him.
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And what does he make Timothy do? Be circumcised and say, well, is Paul out of his mind? Has Paul lost it? He just spent a chapter arguing that circumcision was not necessary, but now he's taking Timothy out.
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And the first thing he says before you can go with me, you have to be circumcised.
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It's like, wow, is he out of his mind? No.
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Timothy was born to a Jewish mother, Timothy was not circumcised at birth.
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Paul knew he would be going to the Jews first, and he was taking along this young boy, young man, not a boy, young man who hadn't been circumcised.
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And he did not want there to be a roadblock between him reaching the Jewish people.
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This wasn't about Timothy's salvation.
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This was about tearing down a wall that would have been put up between him and the Jewish people for the gospel.
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You think Timothy had any problem being circumcised? I don't think that.
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I think he willingly opened himself up to that because I think Timothy had the heart of Paul in this.
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I think Timothy's attitude was whatever it takes.
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If I got to be circumcised, if I got to go through this, if this is going to help me win a soul, if this is going to help me reach a heart, if this is going to tear down a wall that's put up in somebody's mind, is it an unnecessary wall? Is it a useless wall? Is it an inappropriate wall? Yes, but it's still a wall.
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If this is going to build a bridge for the gospel, pull out the scissors and let's get after it.
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Paul says to the Jews, I became as a Jew.
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And for what reason? In order to win Jews.
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The next thing he says to those under the law, and I must admit when he says to those under the law, there is a sense in which that sounds the same because and there is some confusion among the commentators about this, about what exactly Paul means when he says to the Jews, I became a Jew, to those under the law, I became as one under the law.
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And there are some who argue, well, what he's talking about here is he's just reiterating that to those who were under the law, the Jewish people, he became as one of them.
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And it was basically a parallelism that he's saying the same thing twice.
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There is another answer, though.
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It could be that those under the law he's being referenced here are the Gentiles who had accepted Mosaic practice.
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These people were known as God fearers.
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They accepted the law of God in every respect except for circumcision.
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They were not fully Jewish people, but they accepted the law of God as a command on their life and they sought to live after it.
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Thus, they were under the law and they were Gentile people.
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A good example of this would be the man known as Cornelius.
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In the book of Acts, there was a man named Cornelius and Cornelius was not a Jewish man, but he kept he sought to keep the law of God.
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He sought to live under Mosaic covenant.
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And he was known as a God fearer.
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Remember, the apostle Peter was sent to him to preach the gospel.
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Is that the answer to this? I'm not 100 percent certain.
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I wouldn't be dogmatic.
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If you want to argue with me about the back door, that's fine.
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If you got a different interpretation, that's OK.
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But here's the point of the text.
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Paul says to those under the law, I became as one under the law, which means essentially this, whatever restrictions they had, he had.
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Whatever restrictions he went into when he went into a place, whatever restrictions they lived under, he himself was under those restrictions, though not myself being under the law.
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Even though I don't have those restrictions when I'm there, I bowed to those restrictions.
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I released a liberty to save a soul.
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And then verse 21, he says to those outside the law, and I believe those outside the law is easily interpreted as the Gentiles, because the Gentiles were seen as the lawless, those outside the law, those who are not under the Mosaic covenant.
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And Paul says to those outside the law, I became as one outside the law.
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But then he clearly says this, but not being outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ.
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Basically what he's saying like this, I didn't just become lawless just because I went to a Gentile community.
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I didn't just engage in all of their lawless behavior.
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And let me tell you something, this is this text has been misused a lot in that sense.
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People will say, well, yeah, I got to win pot smokers.
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I'm going to go smoke pot.
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Right.
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I'm going to win the drunks.
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I'm going to go get drunk down at Buddy's Bar.
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Right, Jack? We talk about Buddy's Bar in Calahan.
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You know, you should go down to Buddy's Bar and get drunk because that's where all the sinners are.
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Right.
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And when I'm three sheets to the wind, maybe I can save them for Jesus.
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That's not what Paul's saying.
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Paul never gave up his morality, never gave up his ethic.
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He never gave up his commitment to Christ.
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But he also did not hold to the restrictions that had been held when he was with the Jewish people or with the people under the law, when he was with those who were not under the law.
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I think it kind of went like this.
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I think Paul would have went into a home of somebody who was a Gentile person and maybe was some food was said in front of him that in a Jewish household, one would never be brought in, would not ever be cooked and would certainly would not ever be placed in front of him.
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And Paul, as a as a man brought up as a Jew, might look at that food and say, you know, in another house, I couldn't eat this, but here I am in this house.
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And I'm going to become as these people to win these, I'm not going to let this plate of food separate my opportunity to reach them for Christ.
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He never gave up, though, his commitment to his savior.
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Don't ever think.
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And that's, again, the thing, the thing that scares me most is people using this passage as a reason to go out and live like the world.
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Well, I'm seeking to win the world.
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No, you're not.
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You want to be the world, you need an excuse.
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Charles Ryrie, a man that I appreciate a lot of what he's done, don't always agree with everything he says, has some differences with him, but Charles Ryrie did say this about this passage.
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He said, quote, Paul is not demonstrating two-facedness or multifacetedness, but rather he is testifying of a constant, restrictive self-discipline in order to be able to serve all sorts of men, constant, restrictive self-discipline.
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He goes on to say this, just as a narrowly channeled stream is more powerful than an unbounded marshy swamp, so restricted liberty results in more powerful testimony for Christ.
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Essentially, what Ryrie is saying is this is when we restrict ourselves.
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For the sake of others, we're going to have a more powerful influence on them than if we just live unboundedly before all men.
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The fourth group, he says, is the weak.
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He said to the weak, I became weak.
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This is interesting because it's the only one he says differently to the Jews, he says, I became as a Jew to those under the law, I became as one under the law, under the law to those not under law, I became as one not under the law.
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But in this one, he says, I actually became weak.
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Brian Borgman, pastor, I appreciate a lot, makes quite a to do about this.
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He says it's interesting just in the language itself that Paul says, I became like a Jew, I became like a person under law, I became a person not, but I actually became weak with the weak.
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Sometimes it is important.
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That we are willing to be honest about our weaknesses with each other, it's important that we are able to be broken together.
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It's important that we be able to exercise the fact that we are weak, all of us are weak somewhere.
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No one here is a spiritual superhero.
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And so when you see somebody who's weaker than you in an area, it's important for you to be reminded of your own weaknesses.
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When you are exercising love toward that person.
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Paul didn't have to put on a face, he knew he had weaknesses.
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And so when I'm with the weak, I become weak, I become vulnerable, and at the end of verse 22, he says, I become all things to all people that by all means I might save some.
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That's Paul's motivation.
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That's the desire of the apostle, I want to save them from hell, I want to save them for Christ, I want to glorify my savior.
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I've never once gone out with Brother Mike or anyone else to go evangelizing and said, hey, I hope everybody doesn't listen.
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I hope nobody takes a track.
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I hope everybody spits on us when they walk by.
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I know some guys who do.
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There are some guys out there that they get prideful over how much people reject them.
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And they call it their persecution for Christ.
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Now, we want to win souls, that's the desire.
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And so we go and seek to win souls.
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And verse 23 tells us why I do it all for the sake of the gospel.
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Somebody might say, no, I do it for the sake of the person, I want to see them saved from hell.
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Well, there is a sense in which I want to see the person saved from hell.
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That's true.
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I don't want to see anyone go to hell.
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And I want to see every person that I come into contact with know Christ so that he doesn't go to hell.
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But I do it for the sake of the gospel.
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That's what makes the great value in it, because whether the person believes or whether the person doesn't believe, the gospel is preached and God is glorified to the to the unbeliever.
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It's preaching death unto death and to the believer, it's preaching life unto life.
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But the gospel is glorified either way.
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And Christ, who is the purpose and sole foundation of the gospel, is glorified either way.
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To the Apostle Paul, the gospel was something worth giving his life for.
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He knew that in it men's souls could be saved, and he looked forward to one day sharing in that blessing with them because he said, I do it for the sake of the gospel that I might share with them.
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Who's the them? It's the Jews.
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It's the ones under the law.
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It's the ones not under the law.
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It's the weak, all the people he was talking about before.
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I do it so that I may share with them and its blessings.
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One day, one day when we get to glory, we're going to share in the blessing of the presence of God, unseparated by sin, undivided by sin.
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We're going to we're going to we're going to bask in the glow of God's presence forever.
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We're going to be able to share in his in that relationship with him, where the Bible says that the the dwelling place of God will be with man.
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That's the promise of heaven.
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It's not the golden streets and the pearly gates.
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Those are accouterments.
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That's not the promise.
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The promise is God and will share in that blessing with those who have come to know Christ.
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As we have, and won't it be a blessing to know that we were used of God and bringing people to Christ, not so that we can make our crowns bigger or make our spiritual muscles stronger, but just to know that here God used us to save a soul.
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I wonder how many of us look at soul winning, not just as a duty, but as a precious calling from God.
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Do you realize what you carry when you carry the gospel with you? You have the very truth of God about life and death.
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You have the very solution to man's dilemma with you when you carry the gospel with you as you go.
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And yet how many of us would say.
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How many of us would say that soul winning is a driving desire in our life, that soul winning motivates you as you go through your day.
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Someone might say this, Pastor, I'm a very quiet person.
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I'm very well reserved.
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I just can't share Jesus with people.
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I want to tell you this, if this offends you, it's going to have to offend you because I don't know any other way.
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If I offered you a hundred dollar bill for every person you share Jesus with this week, how big of a list could you bring me next week? How much easier would it be for you to break the bounds of your own silence if you knew I was going to give you a hundred dollars for every name you took? And if that be the case, could it not be said that money is more important than the command of Christ in your own heart? Where are our idols? John Calvin said the heart of man is a factory of idols.
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You want conviction? Here's some words of conviction from a confessing atheist.
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Some of you may have heard the name of this man, his name is Penn Jillette, famous magician's group, Penn and Teller.
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Penn is the larger of the two, the one who speaks, the other one remains silent during the shows.
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Penn Jillette is a confessing atheist.
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He has been featured in many documentaries.
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He goes to the Reason Rally and speaks.
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Penn Jillette is very well known as being an unbeliever.
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And yet.
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This is what he says about Christians who don't share their faith, this is an atheist.
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Listen to his words, this is what he says about Christians, because he was asked, he said, does it annoy you when somebody comes and shares Jesus with you? This is what he said.
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He said, I've always said I don't respect people who don't proselytize, meaning share their faith.
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He said, I don't respect people who don't do this.
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I don't respect that at all.
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If you believe there's a heaven and a hell and people could be going to hell and not getting eternal life and you think that it's not really worth telling them because it would make you socially awkward.
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If you really believed it and you're not telling people, this is an atheist.
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So I don't get offended by it.
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If you believe that you should be telling people.
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In fact, he goes on to say, how much do you have to hate somebody not to tell them? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that eternal life is possible and not tell them about it? One of the saddest realities I face as a pastor is that every time there is a chance to go soul winning, every time we open the door and say, come, go with us, come to the open air preaching, come pass out tracks, come work the fishing, whatever.
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I literally have to beg.
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You say, why are you laying this guilt trip on? It's not a guilt trip if you're not guilty.
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C.T.
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Studd said this, he said, some people want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell, but I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.
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The church exists to proclaim the gospel both here and out there.
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And my prayer for you today is that you would ask God, make me a soul winner, make me a person who values the souls of men more than I value my own comfort.
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More than I value my own liberty.
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Nay, more than I value even my own life.
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Let's pray.
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Father, God of mercy, I come to you in Jesus name.
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And I know that I preach as much to myself as I do to any person in this room when I preach this message.
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God, make me a soul winner.
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God, make me one who is truly concerned about the souls of men.
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Make me do it, Lord, for the sake of the gospel, not for the sake of guilt in my conscience, but because I want to see your gospel proclaimed, I want to see your name glorified, and I want to see men trust the Savior.
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Lord, there are men today who are not worshiping you and they should be, for you are infinitely worthy of their worship.
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God, may we proclaim to them, may we proclaim to them the blessings of knowing Christ and worshiping you through your son.
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And it's in the name of your son we pray.
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Amen.