Influencing for Christ: Believers represent God by using their influence to bring others to Him.

1. Influencing for Christ
1 Corinthians 9:19-27; 10:31-33; 11:1
Believers represent God by using their influence
to bring others to Him

2. 1 Corinthians
Viewing all of life through
the lens of the Gospel

3. 1 Corinthians 9:23
Paul’s Goal
I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I
may share with them in its blessings.

4. Matthew 22:37-40
Paul’s Motivation
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as
yourself. On these two commandments depend all the
Law and the Prophets.

5. 1 Corinthians 9:19
For though I am free from all, I have
made myself a servant to all, that I might
win more of them.

6. 1 Corinthians 9:20
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.

7. 1 Corinthians 9:21
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.

8. 1 Corinthians 9:22
To the weak I became weak, that I might
win the weak. I have become all things
to all people, that by all means I might
save some.

9. Where do you tend to land these days?
No connection to the world
Too much like the world

10. Some questions to consider…
Are you becoming more worldly minded than
they are becoming spiritually minded?
Is your passion for winning friends and family
growing, or is it shrinking as you become all
things to them?

11. 1 Corinthians 9:23
Paul’s Goal
I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I
may share with them in its blessings.

12. 1 Corinthians 9:24
Do you not know that in a race all the
runners run, but only one receives the
prize? So run that you may obtain it.

13. 1 Corinthians 9:25
Every athlete exercises self-control in all
things. They do it to receive a perishable
wreath, but we an imperishable.

14. When you think of the people God
has placed in your race, what rights
to self do you need to give up in
order to be the witness He has called
you to be?

15. 1 Corinthians 9:26-27
So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as
one beating the air. But I discipline my
body and keep it under control, lest after
preaching to others I myself should be
disqualified.

16. Where in your life has complacency
or spiritual laziness slipped in?

17. 1 Corinthians 10:31
So, whether you eat or drink, or
whatever you do, do all to the glory of
God.

18. 1 Corinthians 10:32-33; 11:1
Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or
to the church of God, just as I try to
please everyone in everything I do, not
seeking my own advantage, but that of
many, that they may be saved. Be
imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

19. Philippians 2:5-9
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in
Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but made himself nothing, taking the form of a
servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being
found in human form, he humbled himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death
on a cross.

20. How is God represented in your life?

21. A real Christian is an odd number, anyway. He feels
supreme love for One whom he has never seen; talks
familiarly everyday to someone he cannot see; expects to
go to heaven on the virtue of another; empties himself in
order to be full; admits he is wrong so he can be declared
right; goes down in order to get up; is strongest when he is
weakest; richest when he is poorest; happiest when he
feels the worst. He dies so he can live; forsakes in order to
have; gives away so he can keep; sees the invisible; hears
the inaudible; and knows that which passeth knowledge.
A.W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous