Pastor Dan Eddy
1 Corinthians 9:19-27
Must Win Victory
2-5-12
Let us pray:
Lord God almighty. You are the ultimate in power.
No one can beat Your might. Give us the strength and the courage from this
morning’s message to go out and gain more for Christ, seeing everyone in life
as a “must win” victory for Your glory. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.
This morning sermon text
is the Epistle Reading from 1 Corinthians 9:19-27.
Dear brothers and sisters
in Christ.
I.
Introduction – Must Win for the Patriots Today
Wednesday afternoon I was
on the phone with Larry Francis, and we were talking about a variety of things
and as we were concluding our call I wished Larry’s team the New England Patriots victory for today’s
Superbowl matchup with the New York
Giants.
I said, “You guys have been waiting four years for
your rematch, your retribution.” And he said, “Yeah.” I responded that this is a “must win” victory for the Pats (not that teams enter a Superbowl
to place second.) But when a team has beaten you before in the Big Game, you
want to even the score.
Believe me as a Packer fan and owner we are waiting for
our day of rematch or retribution with the Giants.
The day that happens will be a “must
win” victory for us, too. But today is your day. May victory be yours. I
hope I haven’t irritated any Giants’
fans.
I
bring this up because in the ministry of the Church, we too, are in a “must
win” situation when it comes to speaking and living the Gospel. But what
does it mean that we “must win”? What does victory look like? And how do
we participate in the game?
The Apostle Paul in our
text from God’s Word provides us with the winning strategy.
II.
What we are winning
First before you play, you
need to know the object of game. (Point to the cross) Jesus. He is the team we are playing on. And He gives us everything
we need to score a victory.
Our “must win” strategy involves trusting the Savior sent from Heaven
to Earth, born as one of us…whose strength He gives from His death the Cross
and whose victory He gives us from defeating the grave. Verse 25 calls it an
imperishable crown…the perfect, harmonious, everlasting trophy known as Heaven.
That’s the ultimate victory.
The victory today is
winning more people for Christ by telling and showing them the Good News of
forgiveness over all their sins, and letting them know Jesus gives them the
power over death through faith alone in Him with no effort on their part. That’s
grace. With Jesus’ strength, we are winning salvation for those who don’t have
it, or those who don’t realize they already have the victory and are letting it
slip through their spiritual fingers….like a dropped pass in the end zone.
In this text, Paul
suggests a very purposeful strategic approach to the way we “win” others to Christ.
But our strategy for
victory is not going to be speed, agility, brute force, a “Hail Mary” pass, a 4 -3 defense, or trick plays.
Our “Must Win” strategy is lived out naturally in our everyday life
with two components: (1) Being Missional
and (2) Being Incarnational. Let’s take missional first.
III.
Strategy for winning: (1) Being missional
In verse 19, the Apostle Paul exclaims: “For though I am free from all, I have made
myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. “
Freedom in Christ means we are free from the
everlasting condemning effects of all sin. Living this freedom means we
establish ourselves as servants to all people in order to win more of them for Christ. Freedom is not a selfish
endeavor.
In Mark 10:43-45 ESV Jesus said, “But whoever would be great among you must
be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of
all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give
his life as a ransom for many.”
If it’s good enough for
Jesus then it’s good enough for you and me, because Christ has been inside of
you from the day of your baptism…you are a co-partner with Him. You are on the
winning team. So go out there and play.
(Put up graphic) So, Being missional means being sent. Something
implied in this text if you are going to be a servant to all.
You can’t win people for
Christ sitting on the benches…sitting on the sidelines. This is the church’s
locker room. How foolish would it be if any players on the Superbowl teams today
stayed in the locker room and didn’t go out on the field? You can’t win people
for Christ staying in the locker room.
You’re being sent into
schools, work environments, family reunions, neighborhood gatherings, civic
organizations, and clubs. You can even be missional in your own home at your
own Superbowl party.
These are the field of
life we are playing on. Not here in the locker room. Not on the bench in the
comfort of your own home…shutting out the world thinking of only you and your
family.
Jesus is sending you out with the freedom to be a servant to others.
IV.
Winning strategy: (2) Being incarnational
So what does it mean to be
a servant to all? You work for free? No. You do whatever people tell you to do?
No. You allow yourself to be abused, beaten, and taken advantage of? No, no,
and no.
Being a servant to all
means you are being incarnational. The
word incarnation literally means “flesh,
blood, bones.”
(Put up graphic) Being incarnational means you walk where
others walk in life. You live what they live. You breathe what they
breathe. You eat what they eat. You cry when they cry. You rejoice when they
rejoice.
That what’s Paul meant he
wrote in verses 20-22 ESV:
“20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in
order to win Jews.” Those would be
the Jews who didn’t believe in Jesus as the Messiah.
“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.” Those would be the people
trying to earn their way to Heaven with their good works.
“21 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.” Those would be the Gentiles…people who knew next to
nothing about Jesus and God’s Word.
22 To the weak I became weak, that I might
win the weak.” Those would be
those who are believers in Jesus Christ but were falling away from the faith
due to doubts about God and living in unrepentant sin.
Paul’s strategy was not to
believe as a Jew, or trying to gain Heaven by works righteousness, or acting
without a sense morality. He wasn’t saying we should make ourselves weak in the
faith of Christ. But rather to identify, empathize, not necessarily sympathize,
with these people and understand why it is they believe what they believe so
that we can earn the right to speak and show them how they can be a part of
Christ’s “must win” victory. Winning
is saving others.
Paul’s saying “Walk with
them, so you can earn their trust to speak the Gospel and give them Jesus’
victory, faith in Him, so they can forever be on ‘Team Christ.’” You’re not forcing your way on them. Christ is
using you to deliver the “must win” salvation.
We do this by imitating
Christ’s actions. Jesus walked with fisherman to be His disciples. He ate with
tax collectors and prostitutes to bring them into His everlasting Kingdom. He
walked with the Pharisees and Scribes to challenge their weak faith and the
over rating of their good works. He walked with the rich and the poor; men,
women, Jews, Gentiles. He was incarnational to serve as an example for us to
follow.
You see Christ was the
born king of the Jews to redeem the Jews. Because He was the promised Messiah
He also came to save the Gentiles. Today, we win all people for Christ through
baptism, regardless of their ethnic background.
Christ came to strengthen
the weak in faith. Today, we win people for Jesus when we show the weak how His
grace strengthens our weak faith through His Word and in His Holy Supper as we
are offered real strength through His real body and blood to be assured that we
are His “must win” victory, and they can be, too. Winning is saving others.
Who are you being sent to walk along side of in
order to win them for Christ?
Fellow
parents/grandparents; newcomers to our community; someone you share a hobby or
sport with; a person who recently lost a loved one; a person going through a
divorce; someone facing an addiction issue; a disabled person; someone in an
on-line chat room or community; a veteran coming home from the latest wars;
someone who is being bullied at school.
This is not wishful
thinking. This isn’t pie in the sky theory. Paul is very purposeful in His
missional and incarnational approach. It’s involves planning, praying,
listening, speaking, acting with the love of Christ to convey His good news of
salvation.
V.
Being Trained (Getting in shape)
Now I realize sitting
there listening to this sermon on being missional and incarnational seems a bit
“out there” for our mostly
un-churched culture. And while the game analogies are cute or funny…you’re
thinking, “How do I gain the confidence
to do this as naturally as Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady does throwing one of
those winning touchdown passes?”
Simple. You train. That’s
what Paul was talking about in verses 25-27. It’s letting the Holy Spirit be
your inner strength through the study of God’s Word.
Where does the cartoon
character Popeye get his strength? From the spinach. Where do we get our
strength? Taking in the nutrition by studying the Bible…like we’re going to
start this morning with 40 Days in the Word.
And some in our
congregation are a part of Incarnational Missional Community planter training
to give confidence to do this in groups in people’s homes.
And you take that
learning, and God’s love and you live it. And that means some days when you
play this incarnational missional game you’re going to get banged up. You’re
going to lose some points. The enemy Satan is going to score on you and
demoralized you like the Giants did
to the Packers. The Evil One is your
opponent and does not want us to win…but we have (do the sign of the cross) God,
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the owner, quarterback, and coach of the
team.
You become all things to
all people so that by any godly means you might save some. Not all games are guaranteed
victories. But you keep running the plays. You keep living your life winning
others for Christ as though their life depends on it, because it does.
You see winning people for
Christ is looked at as a “must win”
situation, because we don’t want anyone to suffer the everlasting pain of Hell.
But when you’re tired and
you feel like giving up…you pray to your Almighty Coach and ask Him for endurance.
And we’re here in the locker room to feed you, care for you, bandaged you up.
And somewhere in your
incarnational missional walk…you let those who you are winning for Christ know
that they, too, can have something more valuable than the Lombardi trophy…you
let them know of the crown of Christ. You want them to wear the imperishable,
perfect, harmonious crown of Heaven, the ultimate prize.
And time is of the
essence, so this morning I would like to end the sermon with a thought from a
poem I recently read called The Clock
"The clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop
At late or early hour.
To lose one's wealth is sad indeed.
To lose one's health is more.
To lose one's soul is such a loss
That no man can restore."
Winning is saving other’s
souls. Now go from this locker room out on the field of life, sent with the freedom
of Christ to be an incarnational servant to all, gaining “must win” victories
for His glory. Amen.