Contextualize to Evangelize (1 Cor. 9.9-27)

Scripture: I Corinthian 9.19-27

Translation: ¹⁹For example, although I’m free from all people, I enslave myself to all people, so that I could gain more people. ²⁰And I become like a Jew to Jews, so that I could gain Jews, that is [I became] like [someone] under the law to people under the law (even though I’m not personally under the Law), so that I could gain people under the Law. ²¹To lawless people [I became] like a lawless person (even though I’m not lawless person before God; instead I’m a lawbound person before Christ), so that I could gain lawless people. ²²I become a weak person to weak people, so that I might gain weak people. I really am becoming all things to all people, so that in all ways I could save some. ²³Moreover, I do all things because of the Good News, so that I might become a co-sharer of it. ²⁴Don’t you know that although all those running in the stadium are running, only one person gets the prize? In the same way, run, so that you might win. ²⁵And every person who fights maintains self-discipline in all things. So, those people on the one hand [do what they do], in order that they might get a corruptible crown/trophy, but we on the other hand [do what we do] in order that we [might get] an incorruptible one. ²⁶So, in light of the present discussion, I’m running in this way, not as though unclearly, in this way I’m boxing, not as though I’m punching at the wind. ²⁷Instead, I’ve been wearing out my body and making it my slave, so that I personally don’t become unapproved after preaching to others.

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       Free from All, but Enslaving himself for all

                                                              i.      Principle: Free from all, Enslaving himself to all, to gain more people

                                                            ii.      Implications: Contextualization for the sake of Evangelization

1.      Becomes like a Jew to Jews, like a law-bound person to law-bound people

a.       Qualification: free from the Law

2.      Becomes like a person not-bound to the Law, to the people not bound to the law, to win those people

3.      Becomes weak to weak people

b.      Going for the Win, the Prize

                                                              i.      Only the winner gets the prize, so try to win

                                                            ii.      Wresters train, so train yourselves to get an incorruptible crown.

                                                          iii.      I (Paul) am running for the prize, I’m not boxing the air; instead, I’m beating up my body and enslaving it, so that I don’t fail to live up to what I’ve preached

2.      Themes

a.       Different types of people/cultures/socio-economic groups

b.      Gospel

c.       Gain/win

d.      Reward

e.       Freedom surrendered/slavery embraced

f.       Law

g.      Athletic competition

3.      Doctrines

a.       Christians are not under the Mosaic Law

b.      Christians are still however attached to God’s Law through Christ,

c.       Christians are called to humility

d.      Christians goal is reaching the lost with the Gospel

e.       The Gospel shapes what we do and how

Applications

1.      Outline

a.       We are Free

                                                              i.      Free from cultures

1.      Not so free that we were born without a culture

2.      But free to change what culture we live in and by to reach more people

3.      For example,

a.       if Jesus was trying to reach a Muslim, even though He drank wine for His whole life, because He knows that Muslims think that drinking alcohol is bad, Jesus would not drink wine around Muslims, and maybe even former Muslims, who are still very much holding the cultural value of wine being bad

b.      or me, because I am serving in a Korean church, I have accommodated myself to certain cultural values and traditions and expectations, and we as a community did this a couple weeks ago, when we made flowers for parents day, which is not an American holiday, but a Korean one, one that the church as a whole wanted to celebrate, so we did that, even though it may have been far more natural for us to celebrate Mother’s Day and then Father’s Day a month later. And in fact, become some of your parents are really 1.5 generation, they were not expecting a Korean expression of honoring them.

c.       Or for example, some 1^st generation Koreans, don’t seem to like it when we lie around on the couches in our worship room, because they think it is somehow disrespectful to God, and for them it would be disrespectful, but for us who are not in the 1^st generation, a couch is a couch, and a couch is for being comfortable on, and lying on the couch says nothing about our respect or commitment to God

                                                            ii.      Free from the Mosaic Law

1.      Free from having to obey things like Shabbat, food laws, legalistic expectations, purity regulation, Levirate marriage, etc.

2.      But not so free that the Law has no influence over us, that we are totally disconnected from God’s revelation, rather we interact with the Law through Christ, for Christ, and in light of Christ

3.      For example,

a.       Jesus was a Jew, and He ate only Kosher food His whole life, but if Jesus wanted to reach homosexuals in the Old Town area downtown, He would probably eat all kinds of non-kosher foods, like bacon or shrimp, but Jesus would not become a practicing homosexual to try and reach homosexuals, because although we are not under the Law anymore, and Jesus as the fulfiller of the Law dealt with its obligations, we are still connected to the Law through Jesus, and the Law is Jesus’ desires put to writing in the ancient times.

b.      In the same way, you might want to reach the druggies in your school for Jesus, but while it’d be fine to hang out with them, talk with them, even dress like them, if you started doing drugs with them, you will have actually given up your true freedom for a false freedom of being enslaved to drugs

                                                          iii.      Free from socio-economic status

1.      Free from socio-economic stereotypes

2.      But perhaps not so free that we can just buy a yacht on a credit card and expect that we will be free from the collectors

3.      Also, it is should be interesting to note that Paul doesn’t talk about accommodating higher status people, and that may be because in Christ we all are high status, and perhaps because Christianity calls for us to be humble, not self-inflated with our own pompous sense of importance.

b.      We freely choose to surrender our freedom at times for the sake of gaining more brothers and sisters in Christ

                                                              i.      We give up expecting people to adjust themselves to our cultural expectations, and we adjust

                                                            ii.      We don’t require people to become Korean, or White, or Kenyan, or 1^st generation, or second generation to become a Christian

                                                          iii.      We don’t force others to live by legalistic expectations, even if we feel comfortable living with them

                                                          iv.      We do live like free people, we enslave ourselves, for the sake of reaching others

c.       We do all that we do because of the Gospel, to reach more people with the Gospel: we are all about reaching people, we will do whatever we have to, within reason, to reach people with the Gospel.

d.      We’re in it to win it;

                                                              i.      we want to enjoy the Gospel for ourselves

                                                            ii.      to live by the Gospel for ourselves

                                                          iii.      to get the reward contained within the Gospel: eternal life, praise from God, tons of brothers and sisters in Christ

2.      Questions

a.       Do you feel free as a Christian? Why or why not?

b.      What in our culture can we identify with, and what do we have to transform or reject?

c.       How do you think we can accommodate the first generation? How do you think they should accommodate you?

d.      How much does the gospel and reaching people with the Gospel shape all that you do?

e.       How could we become a group that embraced fully all the cultures and backgrounds of the people who join us?

f.       How hard are we as a community pushing to reach the goal of enjoying the Gospel, sharing the Gospel, and living the Gospel? Scale of 1-10, why do you say that number?

Encouragement in Evangelism (Acts 17.16-34)

Scripture: Acts 17.16-34

Translation: ^17.16Then while Paul was waiting on them [Silas and Timothy], his spirit was burning in him from anger, because he was looking at the city that was full of idols. ¹⁷So then, he was debating in the synagogues with the Jews and with the [non-Jewish] worshippers and in the market each and every day with the random people who were there. ¹⁸But also some of the of the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophers were discussing [things] with him. And some were saying, “What could this pop-philosopher possibly want to say?” and others “he seems to be a spokesman for strange spirits” (because he was telling the good news of Jesus and the resurrection). ¹⁹And grabbing him, they brought [him] to the Hill of Ares/Areopagus, saying “Can we know what this new teaching being spoken by you is? ²⁰because you brought some surprising things to our ears. So we want to know what these things want to happen.” ²¹And all the Athenians and the visitors who were staying there had time for nothing else except either speaking or hearing about the latest thing.

²²And Paul stood up in the middle of the Hill of Ares/Areopagus and was saying, “Men! Athenians! I see how in every way you are more/very superstitious/religious. ²³Because when I was passing through and looking up at the things your worship, I found an altar too, on which had written “To an Unknown God.” So, about what you’re worshiping even though you don’t know who it is, I’m going to speak to you about this. ²⁴The God, The One Who made the world and all the things in it, This One Who really is Lord over the heaven and the earth doesn’t live in handmade temples. ²⁵He isn’t served by human hands because He needs anything. He is the [God] Who gives life and breath and all things to all things.

²⁶And He made from one man every nation of humans to live on the whole face of the earth, arranging the truly specified times and borderlines of where they live. ²⁷so they could look for God, then if they might possibly really feel around for Him, they might just find [Him], and Who in fact really isn’t far away from each one of us. ²⁸Afterall, in Him we’re living and moving and existing, just like some of the poets that belong to you really have been saying, “because we too are his children.”

²⁹So, because we really are God’s children, we shouldn’t think what is divine to be like gold or silver or stone, in the image of manufacture and invention of a human.

³⁰So, on the one hand, although God overlooked the times of ignorance, during the present times He commands all human beings everywhere to repent/change their thinking, ³¹given that He appointed a day on which He is about to judge the world with righteousness, by a Man Who He arranged, holding out faith to all people [as a viable option] by resurrecting Him from the dead.”

³²And as soon as they heard “resurrection from the dead,” some were mocking, but others said, “We will hear from you about this again too.” ³³In this way, Paul left from the middle of them. ³⁴And some men attached themselves to him and believed, among whom were both Dionysius the Statesman/Areopagite and a woman by the name of Damaris, and others with them.

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       Intro

                                                              i.      Setting

                                                            ii.      Teaching Jews and Gentile Yahweh-worshippers in the Synagogue

                                                          iii.      Teaching passersby in the market

                                                          iv.      Philosophers take interest in Paul’s message

b.      Message

                                                              i.      Building Rapport

                                                            ii.      God as Creator and Lord of all (Aseity and Transcendence)

                                                          iii.      God as Relational (Immanent)

                                                          iv.      Summary: This God is Different

                                                            v.      Implication: God as Judge, (demands a response)

c.       Response

                                                              i.      Rejection

                                                            ii.      Interest

                                                          iii.      Acceptance

2.      Themes

a.       Idolatry

b.      Boldness

c.       Who God is

d.      God is the Creator

e.       God is Sovereign

f.       God is different

g.      Call to repentance

h.      Jesus

i.        Resurrection

j.        Response

                                                              i.      Positive

                                                            ii.      Negative

k.      (Contextualization)

3.      Doctrines

a.       God is the Creator

b.      God is the Judge, via Jesus

c.       Jesus rose from the dead

d.      God is in total control of everything

e.       God is drawing all people all over the world to Him all the time

f.       Even though God has positioned Himself to be found, not all will accept the Gospel

g.      Christians take the Gospel and explain it in ways people can understand

Applications

1.      Outline

a.       Encouragement

                                                              i.      Who God is and What He does

1.      God is working and set up this whole world to save people

a.       This is great news because it means that God put your friends in your school, in your class, in your social circles, in your lives right now, because He was going to use their circumstances to draw them to Him

b.      This means you have friends and people that you know totally prepared to hear and respond to God—God has done the hard part, even with people who don’t respond God has

2.      God wants to save people

a.       He is even close to them, because He is omnipresent, which means that no one needs to worry about whether someone is too far away from God to be saved, because essentially they are already surrounded by Him, He’s right there

3.      God is in control

                                                            ii.      Paul got the same kinds of responses that we do

1.      Flat out rejection

a.       If you have this happen, it’s ok. You didn’t fail. You were successful. This is just what happens sometimes. God doesn’t blame you, unless of course you were a total jerk

2.      Interest, but not conversion

a.       Sometimes even when you give a clear explanation or summons to respond, some people will still need more time to think about it, to get to know you better, to look into it more deeply

b.      This is actually a great sign, it won’t always mean that person will one day get saved, but it does mean that the person has God working on them, and they are close

3.      Repentance and faith

a.       This is awesome, and sometimes this is the more rare response, but then other times it’s the main response, and ultimately it is God’s hands, but if you share the good news, sooner or later you will see this happen, and there is not much like it

                                                          iii.      There is no right way, per se

1.      There are key things to say, but no set way to say them

2.      No right or wrong places to share the good news

3.      No right or wrong people to share the good news with

4.      No requirement that everyone converts

5.      You don’t even have to be able to finish the whole message

b.      Method

                                                              i.      Key Elements to Cover

1.      There is One True God, who created the universe

2.      God is Sovereign, in control of all, the King over all

3.      All people are ultimately dependant on Him

a.       We often don’t like this fact, but at the end of the day we not it is try

4.      God wants a relationship with humans, and has taken the initiative

5.      God commands repentance and faith

a.       This always is the summons of God to people, this is what we call people to do, to believe the good news, and change their mindset and lifestyle

b.      This is what we always want to get to

6.      God will judge all people via Jesus, who He raised from the dead

a.       I know this is not going to be a popular part of the message, although it is funny to note that what offends people is different in different cultures, they got offended at resurrection, but we get offended at judgment

                                                            ii.      Adapt the form to who you’re talking to

1.      Build rapport/common ground

2.      Talk in terms they understand

3.      Use common ground to your advantage

4.      Don’t shy away from the truth, even if you know they aren’t going to like it

                                                          iii.      Take the opportunities God gives you

2.      Questions

a.       Talk about the unique place God has placed you and how you think He may use that to reach people with the good news through you

b.      What kinds of responses have you gotten or do you think you might get if you share the good news with others? Does it help to know that even Paul experienced similar reactions when he shared the good news?

c.       What are the core parts of the good news? And what parts do you think your friends and family, our culture will like hearing and not like hearing?

d.      Do you think there is a right way and a wrong way to share the Gospel, what do they look like?

e.       Did God give you any opportunities to share the Gospel this past week? Did you remember to pray and ask for opportunities? If you did have an opportunity, did you take it? Why or why not?

f.       If you were going to tell someone the good news, what parts or words do you think would be hard for them to understand? How could explain it to them?

Why We Need to Share the Gospel (Rom. 10.8-17)

Scripture: Romans 10.8-17

Translation: ⁸Instead, what does [righteousness by faith] say? “The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,” that is the message of faith, which we are preaching: ⁹namely that, if you would confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord/Yahweh” and believe with your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved! ¹⁰Afterall, with the heart a person believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth a person confesses resulting in salvation. ¹¹Because the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes on Him will not be put to shamed, ¹²because there’s no difference between both Jew and Greek, because the Same Lord is over all, being rich enough for all the people who call on Him. ¹³because whoever all on the Name of the Lord/Yahweh will be saved. ¹⁴How then can they call on whom they haven’t believed in? And how can they believe whom they haven’t heard of? And how can they hear with someone proclaiming? ¹⁵And how can they proclaim, if they haven’t been sent? Just like it really is written, “Like things coming just in the nick of time are the feet of the people telling the Good News!” ¹⁶Yet, not all people obey the Good News. After all, Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” ¹⁷So, the faith is from hearing, and the hearing through the spoken-message of the Messiah.

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       Context: Romans 9-11

                                                              i.      Rom. 9.1-29

                                                            ii.      Rom. 9.30-10.21

1.      Rom. 9.30-33

2.      Rom. 10.1-4

3.      Rom. 10.5-13

4.      Rom. 10.14-21

                                                          iii.      Rom. 11.1-36

2.      Themes

a.       Faith/believing

b.      Hearing

c.       Telling the good news/announcing/proclaiming/preaching/Good News/Gospel/spoken words

d.      Saved/salvation

e.       Righteousness

f.       Confession

g.      No difference

h.      Calling on

i.        Jesus is Lord/Yahweh

j.        Jesus has been raised from the dead

3.      Doctrines

a.       Jesus is Yahweh; He is Lord; He is the One True God

b.      Jesus is alive, raised from the dead by God

c.       Salvation is by faith alone

d.      God saves, but He works through people telling other people the Good News (the doctrine of compatibilism: i.e. that God works through our actions to achieve many of His aims, so that our actions and choices are the means He has chosen to achieve His ends)

e.       People have to hear the Gospel to be saved, which means people have to tell the Good News

f.       God usually will not personally tell someone the Good News, because He wants to work through us

Applications

1.      Outline

a.       Why We tell people the Good News: Because it is Good News for everybody

                                                              i.      It is good news, because they don’t have to do anything, just believe and ask God to save them

                                                            ii.      It’s good news, because it’s not a complicated message to believe

1.      Jesus is the Only True God, their God/Lord

2.      Jesus was raised from the dead by God the Father, their Savior

                                                          iii.      It’s good news, because believing in Jesus for salvation guarantees salvation

                                                          iv.      It’s good news, because all kinds of people can get saved: Jews, Greeks, Koreans, Africans, Hindus, Muslims, Satan-worshippers, Catholics, atheists, agnostics

1.      As far as God is concerned, there’s no difference, they’re all in the same category: dead, lost, and doomed

2.      God is rich enough in mercy and grace and Christ’s blood to save all the people who ask Him to save them

b.      Why We tell people the Good News: Because if we won’t tell, they won’t believe

                                                              i.      People have to hear and accept the Gospel to be saved, so we have to tell them

                                                            ii.      God wants to work through us to bring people to Him, so we have to tell them

                                                          iii.      Does that mean if I tell someone, they will for sure get saved? No, they have to hear and believe. But we can’t know who will or won’t hear and believe, so we have to tell them

                                                          iv.      But to tell them, we need to be sent to tell them? But the truth is that we all have been sent by Jesus, but soon we will have a special time/service to send you, and that time starts now with the next song, moreover, this is part of why we are going to start getting out of this building and into this world at least once a month, and over the summer, we may do it even more than that, because we really have been sent.

2.      Questions

a.       If you had 2 minutes to tell someone the Good News about Jesus, what would you say?

b.      When does someone become a Christian? How do you know?

c.       How does it make you feel to know that God wants to work through you to save people? Do you think that will make it easier or harder to tell people about Jesus?

d.      When you pray and talk with God, or when you read His Word, do you sense that He has called you to share Him with the world?

e.       Who do you know that needs Jesus? Have you had an opportunity to tell them? If you did, did you take it? If not, what held you back?

f.       Pray for 5 people that you know need to trust in Jesus. Pray for them every day this week and ask for an opportunity to talk to them this week. 

Why We Can Share the Gospel Without Shame (Rom. 1.14-19

Scripture: Romans 1.14-19

Translation: ¹⁴Both to Greeks and Barbarians, both to smart people and stupid people I am a debtor, ¹⁵such that in this way the desire that clicks with me is to also tell the Good-News to you who are in Rome. ¹⁶For I’m not ashamed of the Good-News, because it is God’s power resulting in salvation for every believing person, both to the Jewish person first of all and to the Greek person, ¹⁷because it’s God’s righteousness is being revealed in that person from faith to faith, just as it really is written “And the righteous person will live by faith. ¹⁸For God’s fury is being revealed from Heaven on every impiety and unrighteousness of humans, those who hold down the truth with unrighteousness, ¹⁹because what is knowable about God is clear to them, because God made it clear to them.

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       I it owe to them to tell the Good-News

                                                              i.      Because I’m not ashamed of the Good News

1.      Because it is God’s power to save every believing person

a.       Because it’s God’s righteousness being revealed in that person by faith

b.      Because God’s anger is being revealed against all sin and unrighteousness done by humans, who pretend they don’t know what the truth is

                                                                                                                                      i.      It’s pretend, because what can be known about God is clear to them

1.      Because God made it clear (i.e. it really is clear)

2.      Themes

a.       Why/explanation

b.      Faith

c.       Righteousness/unrighteousness

d.      God

e.       Clarity

f.       Different social, cultural, ethnic classes

g.      Good-News/Gospel

3.      Doctrines

a.       The Gospel is God’s power in action to save anyone and everyone who will believe

b.      God is super-infinitely righteous

c.       God does get angry: as much as God takes action to save believing people, He takes action to punish and destroy unbelieving/unrighteous people

Applications

1.      Outline: Why should we feel the need and want to tell other people about Jesus without shame

a.       Because our Good-News really is good news!

b.      Because our Good-News really has the power to save believing people

                                                              i.      See part of our problem is that we don’t really believe our Good-News saves people. Either because

1.      We don’t think God will actually show up and work when we tell people

2.      We don’t think our friends, family, co-workers, fellow-students, that random guy on the bus, the girl whose name you can’t seem to remember, the barista at the coffee shop you talk to sometimes actually need saving

                                                            ii.      In response,

1.      For thinking God won’t show up, Paul makes it very clear that our Good-News and our Christian lives is all about faith, have you ever considered that perhaps sometimes God doesn’t show up, because you don’t trust Him to. Our God is all about faith. He wants us to trust Him. Our lives with Him that are based on trust, must have trust that goes all the way through every aspect of our lives. We don’t just trust God to save us, and that’s it. Paul is saying that we trust Him for everything, starting with when we became a Christian until we meet Jesus face-to-face. That includes when we tell other people about Jesus

2.      For thinking that people don’t really need saving, see the next point, but also note

a.       The very fact that we are saved ourselves, proves that people need saving. We are not so special or so broken that we are different from the rest of the world. No, as much as we needed to be saved, they need to be saved

b.      More than anything this shows we probably don’t know or understand or love or even trust God very well, so let’s see

c.       Because our Good-News really is the only way to avoid getting the punishment our sins deserve

                                                              i.      Because our God is righteous

                                                            ii.      Because our God gets angry

                                                          iii.      Because people really are rebellious and anti-God

1.      Because they could know God if they wanted to, but instead they strangle the truth God has made clear to them.

2.      In our culture some people say, I need proof that God is real, how could I ever really know there is a True God out there? And while part of our desire is to give some proof, at the end of the day, whether they realize how much they could have known or not, God will say to them when they meet Him, not “well, how could you have known I was real. After all, I didn’t give you any good ways to know.” He is going to say, “Don’t tell me you couldn’t know Me, because the truth is you wouldn’t know me.

d.      Because our Good-News really is for everyone

                                                              i.      Because anyone can trust, even cute small children, to old senile grandparents—you don’t have to work at anything to enjoy it

1.      This means that there are no barriers to knowing God and having a true and healthy relationship with Him. Also, it is one of the things that makes being a Christian so radically different than any other religion. All the other religions eventually come down to you and me doing something to make God like us, to force God to give us some eternal reward

                                                            ii.      Because there is no gender, social, cultural, ethnic, economic intellectual—any—barrier that God has imposed.

1.      And this really is good news, because if you look at the other world religions, this really is something that sets Christianity apart. For example, in most of the world religions, if you’re a woman, you’re in trouble. There is no guaranteed hope for you. In Islam and Mormonism, for example, there is no real future or guarantee or hope, because you are just not as valued or considered for saving. In fact, at the beginning of the church, pastors had to argue about whether women even had souls or not, because the culture they were in basically was saying, “No, women don’t have souls, so they can’t be saved.” But, the Gospel is great news for women, because Christians believe you really do have souls and God really does have great plans for you and great love for you. Why do you think that wherever Christianity goes, women come to God in droves, because it is only in Christianity that women will be truly loved, empowered, and accepted as full-members of the community. The only reason American culture treats women with any level of equality is because Christianity’s value system at one time reigned supreme in Western culture.

2.      Or why is it that the poor come to God so much, because only God truly values the poor, loves the poor, and doesn’t require they become rich to be a good Christian.

3.      And aren’t you glad that we don’t all have to be Einstein to become a Christian, because let’s face it, most of us are not that smart.

4.      And aren’t you glad that our Good News is not for only Koreans, or only white people, or only Jews—there’s no one you can’t tell, and there’s no requirement that we become a totally different culture, in a lot of muslim places, if you are not an arab, you’re a second rate muslim

e.       Because our Good-News really is a guaranteed salvation

                                                              i.      Because it is by faith, people who really do believe the Good-News really can expect to be saved. In our culture and in other religions there is not any absolute hope, because it is totally based on whether you were good enough. But our Good-News really is good news because it not about whether you or me are good enough, because it’s all about how good God is, that He is good enough

2.      Questions

a.       Do you want to tell other people about the Good News of Jesus? What makes you want to or not want to?

b.      Do you understand why people need to be saved? What makes it easy or hard to believe people need saving?

c.       Have you ever written somebody off as too lost, bad, or ignorant to be saved?

d.      Is your current life marked by faith in God? Does everything you do flow out of faith in Him? Why or why not?

e.       Are you comfortable with trusting in a God Who gets angry at bad things? What about a God Who has to do what is right? Is it possible those to characteristics of God are two sides of the same coin, two sides of one truth?