Audio Transcript

Hashtag winning. Global missions and personal evangelism is all about winning. Winning is the word Paul loves to use, as you can see in a text like 1 Corinthians 9:19–22. There Paul wrote,

Though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. [And] to the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.

So what does Paul mean when he uses win five times in four verses? Here’s Pastor John to explain Paul’s word, and why it matters for our evangelism today.

Now the word win in English is ambiguous. You can win a prize, and you can win an argument. What does Paul mean by win — win all these people? If you win a prize, you gain it: “I’ve got it. I have it. Mine!” If you win an argument, you defeat somebody.

What’s Paul’s meaning? There’s no doubt what his meaning is. It’s on the face of it, but it’s even more clear in the original language. He means, “I win a prize. I gain a prize.” How do I know that? Well, it’s just obvious from the context, I think. But test me on this, the hundreds of you who know your Greek. Kerdainō is the verb for win. It’s almost always translated gain (except for here and one other place), like in Matthew 16:26: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” That’s kerdainō, the word win here. Or Philippians 3:8: “I count everything as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ.” That’s the word win here.

Our Expansive Joy

So his point is, “I want to gain Jews. I want to gain Gentiles. I want to gain the weak. I don’t want to gain money. I don’t want to gain power and rights. The gospel has assured me that I get great gain in fully enjoying Christ, so what can I add to that? More enjoyers of Christ for me to enjoy.”

“I want to gain people, all kinds of people, so that I can be a sharer with them as they enjoy gospel blessings.”

What does that even mean? And he tells us what he means by the reward of gaining people in 1 Corinthians 9:23: “I do it all for the sake of the gospel [here comes the purpose statement], that I may share with them [that is, with all those people that I gained] in its blessings.” So he wants to gain more and more people so that he might share in the gospel blessings with them.

Now, notice the wording carefully. He does not say what I would expect him to say (and it would be true): “. . . so that they can share with me in the gospel blessings.” There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s absolutely true, right? Missionaries go out to bring people to share with them in the gospel blessings. That’s not what he says. He says, “. . . that I may share with them in the blessings of the gospel.” I want to gain people, all kinds of people, so that I can be a sharer with them as they enjoy gospel blessings, that I might enjoy their enjoyment of Christ.

Now, what does that imply about the nature of joy in gospel blessings? What do I mean by “gospel blessings”? Forgiveness of sins; declaration of your righteousness before Christ, before God; removal of all condemnation; reconciliation with God; adoption into his family; fellowship with Christ; hope of eternal life. What does what Paul just said imply about my enjoyment of that, those gospel blessings?

Here’s what it implies: our gospel joy is authentic and satisfying only if we desire to taste this joy in the hearts of other people. I’ll say it again. Our gospel joy in those blessings is authentic and satisfying only if we desire to taste those blessings and that joy in the hearts of other people as they experience those blessings. “I want to gain people. I want to gain people of all kinds in order that I might share in their experience of gospel joy.” Do you?

‘I Want You’

Let me just pause here, because this is relevant for missionaries, it’s relevant for every believer, and I just have a little practical, earnest plea. Most of you have shared the gospel with a dad or a mom or a brother or a sister or a son or a daughter or a roommate or a colleague or a friend or a stranger.

“Our gospel joy is authentic and satisfying only if we desire to taste this joy in the hearts of other people.”

And if you’ve never done this, I really encourage you to do it. Next time, when the situation allows it — that is, there’s enough solitude and earnestness — you sit down across the table at a restaurant, and you look them in the eye, and you say, “I want you. I really want you. I want you to be my friend forever. I want you to be my brother, my sister, forever. I want to gain you. I want your joy to be my joy.” They’ve never heard anybody say that to them. Many people have explained the facts to them, right? How many people have looked into their eyes and said, “I want you — I want you to come in, be in my life, be in my church, be in my forever”?

That’s, I think, what Paul was saying. “I want to gain people.” And I would just say, right here, to the unbelievers in the room, “I want you.” I know about some of you. We’ve had emails. You’re here. You may still be resisting. And just hear John Piper say, “I want you forever, my brother, my sister, my friend.” I mean it.

Saved by God from God

Did you notice where I stopped in my list of people that he is trying to gain? You should have said, “Why did he stop there?” Because there was another thing. I stopped right in the middle of 1 Corinthians 9:22. What did I leave out? Let’s pick it up in the middle of 1 Corinthians 9:22: “I have become all things to all people, that I might [and he switches from win to save] save some.” What does save mean for Paul? “I want to save people.” Well, he doesn’t mean that he’s the Savior. He doesn’t mean he’s the means of people’s salvation. What does he mean?

Romans 5:9: “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” Or 1 Thessalonians 1:10: “Jesus . . . delivers us from the wrath to come.” Being saved, in biblical language, means first and fundamentally — those are two important words: first and fundamentally. There are other things it means, but first and fundamentally, it means that God, by means of the substitution of Christ bearing our condemnation, saves us from God. And if you don’t get that, I don’t know how you get the gospel at all. We are saved by God from God. We’re saved by the love of God from the wrath of God. And Christ was sent by God to reconcile us to God and lead us out of wrath.

In 1 Corinthians 9:23, Paul says, “I want to share with them, those that I’m saving, in their enjoyment of the gospel blessings” — meaning, “I want to share with what happens when they hear the verdict in the courtroom, ‘not guilty,’ and they run out of the courtroom and do handsprings down the sidewalk in front of the court, saying, ‘I’m not going to be executed! I’m not going to be killed! I’m not going to be spending eternity in hell! I am free!’”

“I want to be there,” Paul said. “I want to share in that. I want to watch that happen all over the world with Jews and Gentiles.” Do you? If it only happens to one person in your life, it will be one of the sweetest moments of your life to have a person thank you and watch them come into the enjoyment of no condemnation forever.

Early in my marriage (and midway through an argument), my wife complained to me one day that I talked to her like I would a guy from seminary. By my beard, she was right. I knew exactly what she meant.

Amidst my band of brothers, sword fights were not uncommon. Generals trained us for battle; we could not be afraid to spar. Fights happened, as they must when important things are at stake, but we asked forgiveness if necessary and left the stronger for it. Our spiritual program, a place for serious joy, prepared us to affect untold people and places and eternities. We needed one another for sharper service. To be the men our Lord was calling for, we needed heat and friction and resistance from brothers who were for each other in Christ.

My marriage, however, I confused with this combat training. When we disagreed, I instinctively strategized, mobilizing forces of argumentation and logic here, mounting a brigade of illustration there; war must decide which idea prevailed. When I listened, it was the calculating variety — cold and non-interrupting, as Chesterton once said, “he listens to the enemy’s arguments as a spy would listen to the enemy’s arrangements” (What’s Wrong with the World, 26). A good practice for debate; a poor way to live with my wife in an understanding way.

Though as theologically sharp as many seminary men, she was my wife, not my fencing partner. Though she could hold her own, she did not find the swordplay, even when discussing Scripture, nearly as uplifting as I did. Note to self: I should not duel my wife over doctrine. Good to know.

Of Mice and Men

A man ought not debate his wife as he would a brother. But let’s add another truism: a man need not disagree with brothers in the same way he would with his wife. It is one problem to talk to wives like men; it is another to talk to men like wives. It is one loss to forget how to live with our wives in an understanding way, another to forget how to live with men according to the nature of men. Are we losing the ability to talk to men as men?

The writer of Ecclesiastes writes that for everything (speech included) there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to build up, plant, laugh, heal, embrace, and make peace. But this is not all he says. At other times, you must sit among your brothers to pluck up, to kill, to die, to break down, to refrain from embracing, to weep, to lose, to attack his darling sins or cherished unbelief (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8).

God’s rams still need to butt heads; his lions still need to roar. We can’t always play two-hand touch. Nathans need to tell Davids, “You are the man!” Pauls need to oppose Peters to their face or stand aghast at the Galatians. We need Nathaniels in whom exists no guile or flattery. We need men whose “letters are weighty and strong” (2 Corinthians 10:10), servants not tickled by man-pleasing (Galatians 1:10). We need Judes able to contend for the faith because they’ve learned how to contend with their brothers in seminary classrooms and with men who hold them accountable.

Where are the Luthers, the Spurgeons, the Ryles that roused sleeping generations with masculine boldness? We have few and need more. When masculine directness, Christlike candor, and warlike speech fade from the mouths of good men, the world and church suffer rot.

The Man Christ Jesus

Imagine our Savior’s deliberation the moment Peter, his second-in-command, stands between him and the cross. Heaven’s cheers had not yet died down at Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ,” before Peter tries to confront this Christ (Mark 8:29, 32). Jesus plainly taught that the Son of Man must suffer and be rejected, yet Peter, trusting his assessments too much, “took him aside and began to rebuke him” (Mark 8:32).

Do not miss the phrase preceding Christ’s masculine reply:

But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Mark 8:33)

Jesus commends Peter, the rock, in one breath (Matthew 16:15–20), and administers the strong rebuke in the next. Notice where he looked before he struck: at his other sheep. He considered them as a good father considers the other children who witness a sibling’s defiance. Peter needed to hear this; the disciples needed to hear this. To withhold it would fail not only Peter, but them. We imagine Peter’s eyes following his Savior’s to the other disciples in that intense moment, only to reengage with the blow: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Modern-day disciples trained in a generation of safe spaces recoil: Jesus, don’t you see he only cares about your welfare? He was only considering group morale. Did you really have to call him Satan and belittle him in front of the others? Jesus, don’t you think that was a little harsh? He did well just a minute ago; I wonder if you missed an opportunity to encourage him.

But Jesus, perfectly concerned with God’s glory and the eternal good of his sheep, struck the rock before the others. He had manly words and a manly tone for his chief man and friend. Seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter to teach them all. A man bold only toward his enemies is not yet as Christlike as he needs to be.

And take note: nobody ran away crying. No one took to blows. No one challenged another to a duel. The truth was spoken, the rebuke taken, and men moved on, better for it. How can we establish fellowship like this? A couple of starting points.

1. Set terms in peacetime.

Unlearning the coddling of modern speech, especially within male circles, need not be done overnight. We do not put gloves on, sneak up behind a brother, and sucker punch him in the name of courage. In my experience, rules of engagement should be established beforehand. When some men and I formed a group years ago, we drew from an old meeting covenant and agreed in the affirmative:

Are you willing to charitably rebuke, chasten, and instruct each other?
Are you willing to take rebukes, chastening, and instruction from others?

We make it clear at the beginning that we must have priorities higher than comfort. Here we strive for a culture concerned with grace-giving but also sin-slaying so that we might be more God-pleasing. We resolve — God helping us — not to let personal ego or weaker-brother sensitivities stop our ears from hearing (or giving) a discomforting word, a naked question, or a plain rebuke.

Bold speech had been a weakness of some in our brotherhood; now it’s a strength. Caring they remain, but without the coddling that shelters sin and harbors — for the sake of “unity” — God-belittling theology and practice.

2. Consider the goodness of correction.

Yes, confrontation is unpleasant. To some it feels like a slow suffocation. To others, a frozen chill climbing the spine. To others, the kindling of a flame to devour culprits offering this strange fire. To still others, the words replay in the mind as hammer blows, driving them down and down into the floor.

After the initial tremor, a man’s pride usually demands satisfaction. Criticism, disagreement, correction all seem to drag our reputation into the contest. I’ve felt what Richard Baxter describes:

They think it will follow in the eyes of others that weak arguing is the sign of a weak man. . . . If we mix not commendations with our reproofs, and if the applause be not predominant, so as to drown all force of the reproof or confutation, they take it as almost an insufferable injury. (The Reformed Pastor, 129–30)

“A man bold only toward his enemies is not yet as Christlike as he needs to be.”

In the heat of the moment, I’ve found that cool reflection on the goodness of correction helps me summon the cavalry of humility. In my disagreement, am I loving the truth, the church, my brother, my God, or myself? If the former, the jousters may need to take another pass. If the latter, I should be suspicious of my urge to swing back, slow to speak, and willing to disengage for a time to drown my pride in Christ’s blood.

Love Peace, Go to War

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 3)

Jude did not live to fight, but he would fight. He wished to discuss the thing that brought him the most joy: their common salvation in Christ. He wanted to explore the treasury of Christ’s excellencies, the bliss of the new birth, the grandeur of God’s glory, and the wonder of the cross. He wanted to drape these glories over all of life (and he does some), but alas . . .

There is a time to discuss our common salvation and revel in Christ. And there is a time when we must draw a sword and defend the Savior and salvation in which we revel. In our times, the spirit of the age scolds that the masculine tone is toxic, aggressive, and unnecessary. Boys should not be boys — much less, someday, men.

Brethren, we are chiefs of our tribes, leaders of families. If we cannot spar over the greatest, most urgent verities of this world and the next, where can we? If we are to hear “you’re wrong” or undergo cross-examination or hear rebuke, should it not be over these truths and with brothers who love us? “A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool” (Proverbs 17:10). Let hard words sink in, men of God. Speak them with patience; deliver them for each other’s good; remember to speak to men as men. Learn not only to endure them but to cherish them.

If you could learn to preach from one man in particular, whom would you choose? Some may want to mention big names of today. Others may be entranced by great preachers of the past, the names that echo through history. Perhaps, closer to home, a dear mentor left a particular imprint upon us.

But what about the apostles, men full of the Holy Spirit, and their inspired sermons recorded in Scripture? Should we not learn from them first? In a delightful book called Peter: Eyewitness of His Majesty, my friend Ted Donnelly speaks of Peter as a disciple, as a preacher, and as a pastor. The book is a magnificent treatment of this servant of Christ. Some years before my friend himself passed into Christ’s presence, he preached on Acts 2 and identified some of the features of Peter’s preaching. I gladly acknowledge my debt in what follows.

What, then, can the record of apostolic preaching teach us? What lessons might we learn to help us declare the whole counsel of God? Turning to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2:14–40), let me suggest seven features of apostolic preaching that we can and should pursue.

Peter manifestly preaches in the here and now, beginning with the striking assertion about the disciples’ sobriety (Acts 2:15). Peter preaches an immediately relevant sermon as a man who knows where and when he speaks, and with whom. His sermon proceeds from a real person and is to, about, and for real people — those in Jerusalem who crucified the Lord of glory. He focuses on the most important matters — salvation from sin through faith in the Christ who died and rose. The sermon is earthy, preached by a dying man to dying men, yes, but also by a living man to living men, about the man who lived, died, and lives again forever.

Do we preach with the same sense of immediacy, with the same sense of reality? Do our messages seem like history lectures, or are people made to feel that this sermon pours from a present me to a present you?

2. Scriptural and Reasonable

Peter moves from explanation to exposition to application to persuasion. He takes account of his hearers’ experience, but he uses Scripture to interpret, explain, and confirm it (as in 2 Peter 1:19). Dealing with what his congregation knows, sees, and hears, he turns to Joel 2 to explain the work of the Spirit, to Psalm 16 to emphasize the reality of the resurrection, to Psalm 110 to connect the ascension of Christ with the grant of the Spirit.

Again and again, Peter makes the point, “This is that! That is what it says, and this is what it means.” He is preaching like Christ, employing what I call an apostolic hermeneutic, which Christ patterned for his disciples in Luke 24:27 and 44–48. Does our preaching rest in and rely upon the word of God? Are we manifestly proclaimers and explainers of divine truth, and chiefly of Christ as he is set forth in all the Scriptures?

3. Doctrinal and Instructive

I doubt anyone has ever been asked to preach a distinctly Trinitarian sermon, blending the richest insights of biblical and systematic theology, and covering such topics as theology proper, Christology, pneumatology, prolegomena, anthropology, soteriology, sacramentology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. You might consider such a request ridiculous or even impossible. Yet I suggest that Peter manages it here!

All these notes resonate and combine at Pentecost. Peter introduces all of them naturally, accessibly, substantially, and forcefully — sermonically! Peter is a true theologian, and his sermon is the fruit of Christ’s instruction and the Spirit’s illumination. But he is also a true preacher: though well taught, he doesn’t feel the need to parade his learning. He is neither entertaining the goats nor straining the giraffes. He is calling and feeding the sheep, and therefore he both knows and shows his theology appropriately. His scholarship is not lofty and academic, but consecrated to save and sustain souls through the plainest of declarations.

Are we preaching meaty or milky sermons, according to the needs of our hearers? Good preaching sets forth doctrine sometimes centrally, sometimes incidentally, so that the truth comes across as deep, clear, and sweet to the congregation.

4. Christian and Adoring

Peter’s sermon is theologically rich, but it zeroes in on the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter’s sermons, like Paul’s and others recorded in the New Testament, are full of the Lord Jesus, overflowing with precious truth concerning him. The Pentecost sermon is ardently and urgently Christ-centered, Christ-focused, Christ-exalting. The prophets spoke of him; God sent him; we trust him. He who is God the Son is also identified as true man, the promised man, the sent man, the crucified man, the risen man, the ascended man, the exalted man, the gracious man, the saving man.

“Have we preached, will we preach, a gospel that is whole and holy, free and full, sweet and saving?”

Remember, Peter is preaching to people who knew the Old Testament and among whom Jesus of Nazareth had physically walked. If they needed such instruction, how much more do hearers today? People do not know, or even know about, Jesus of Nazareth. They need men who are urgent and ardent to tell them of the Savior. Are we as preachers going out to tell people about Jesus Christ? Are we eager for people to hear of him, or do we not believe that the preaching of Christ will prove God’s means of bringing sinners to faith?

5. Applied and Direct

“Men and brothers,” said Peter, “Let me speak freely . . .” (Acts 2:29 NKJV). And he meant it! Read through the sermon again. Peter is plain, open, bold, and courageous. He looks his congregation in the eye and speaks to them. He speaks with startling bluntness: “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. . . . Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:23, 36).

This is not hectoring speech; nor is it unrighteously aggressive. We should expect the word of God to dig, to press, to probe, to trouble the soul, to cut to the heart. When the Spirit brings it home, hearers cry out, “What shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). The seraphic Samuel Pearce pleaded,

Give me the preacher who opens the folds of my heart; who accuses me, convicts me, and condemns me before God; who loves my soul too well to suffer me to go on in sin, unreproved, through fear of giving me offence; who draws the line with accuracy, between the delusions of fancy, and the impressions of grace; who pursues me from one hiding place to another, until I am driven from every refuge of lies; who gives me no rest until he sees me, with unfeigned penitence, trembling at the feet of Jesus; and then, and not till then, soothes my anguish, wipes away my tears, and comforts me with the cordials of grace.

Do we expect such preaching? If necessary, will we seek it out? Do we as preachers express truth directly, or do we fudge and shave, blunting the edge of the Jerusalem blade? Do we expect and desire our preaching to provoke the question, “What shall we do?” or have we become experts in turning aside the thrust of divine truth?

6. Affectionate and Gracious

Peter’s most direct speech does not lack love. He speaks to them and toward them, for them (Acts 2:14, 21–22, 29, 38–39). He holds back neither the horror of sin nor the hope of salvation. These last days are gospel days! The good news is being proclaimed to all: repent and believe in Christ, and you shall be saved. (Matthew Henry delightfully calls this offer “a plank after shipwreck.”) Then be baptized, identifying yourself with the Jesus of Scripture, the Christ from Nazareth. Forgiveness will be granted, and the Holy Spirit, who is God himself, will dwell in you to purify you, to bless you, to keep you.

Do we know how to combine the straight and the sweet? Have we learned, under God, to wound and to bind up? Do we know and love the people before us and around us, and so speak? Have we preached, will we preach, a gospel that is whole and holy, free and full, sweet and saving? Have we received the Jesus who brings salvation, and do we delight to tell others of him?

7. Blessed and Fruitful

Peter’s sermon strikes home hard and deep. Those cut to the heart cry out, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And soon after, “those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:37, 41). Solemnity and scorn gave way to serious concern, and the Lord granted salvation to thousands. This sermon, preached by a man full of the Holy Spirit, instructed by the Savior and illuminated by the Helper, is a carrying out of the Great Commission. As Peter obeys the command of Christ, three thousand receive the word, are baptized, and so are added to the number of the believers (perhaps more than Christ saw in all the days of humiliation, if we so read John 14:12).

Do we not have the same gospel? Do we not have the same Savior? Do we not have the same Spirit? Can we not preach similar sermons? Can we not pray for and expect similar results? I mean not so much the great numbers (though neither do I dismiss them), but rather the same spiritual reality and heavenly force?

Here is a model for truly apostolic preaching, an example for those who follow in the faith and labor of the apostles. We are not apostles, but we can desire more of the apostolic spirit. In that sense, we can and should seek to preach apostolic sermons, not as cold constructs according to some dry standard, but as the products of burning hearts taken up with Christ and desiring, above all things, the glory of God in him, and the eternal good of all those who hear.