ILLUSTRATION: Two years ago, I had a conversation with a lawyer up in Bryanston. She was about my age. She asked why we were here, and I replied that we were starting churches. "Missionaries," she responded, and I nodded. She said that the terms missions and missionaries had fallen on hard times since Christianity is seen in the new South Africa as a vestige of old European colonialism. How the Lord must chuckle … or sigh … at Christianity being seen as a European faith.

• When Christianity began in Jerusalem it was a faith
• When Christianity moved to Greece, it became a philosophy
• When Christianity moved to Rome, it became an institution
• When Christianity moved to Europe, it became a tradition
• When Christianity moved to America, it became a business
• Now, we're a combination of all five.

How simple things used to be - just people and principles. No traditions, no buildings, no need for legalities, corporate form, or business practices. Before you romanticize it too much, remember that there was also no electricity, no plumbing, no transportation to carry you more than a few kilometers a day, no good medical care; half of our babies would die in their first year of life, and the rest of us might live to the ripe old age of 35 or 40. Interesting - the Chinese church is experiencing this right now - simple, ahistorical, persecuted.

Remember last time that we said that the theme for this chapter could be, "Pulling out all of the stops for the sake of the gospel." We could also say "making sacrifices for the sake of the gospel."
- What sacrifice have you made for the gospel?
- What discomfort have you chosen so that people can hear the only truth that saves?

Last week was easy - it was just about giving money so that those in vocational ministry could get paid and help equip the rest of us for ministry along the way. Paul said, "I am not slowing down the gospel even though I am not getting paid" (vv. 1-18) - "I have a right to get paid for my work in ministry, but I will gladly give up that right for the sake of getting out the gospel." Our application was that we need to give sacrificially so that we can support people in vocational ministry.

Today, Paul says, "I am not slowing down the gospel because I refuse to adapt to my surrounding culture" (vv. 19-23) - "I have freedom in Christ to simply be who I am, but I will gladly give up that right for the sake of getting out the gospel." Our application this week is to force ourselves, and to allow our church, to get out of our comfort zone to reach people with the gospel - to become like the people that surround us so that we can give them the gospel.

PRAYER

TEXT: 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

1. Making Yourself a Servant (v. 19)
We like being free. To be on our own is to be free; to be on holiday is to be free. To be independently wealthy is to be very free. When someone says, "my time is my time," they are saying not to encroach on their freedom. Paul was free - he had no wife and no kids, and he had a trade (tentmaking) where he could support himself. He could come and go as he pleased.

Being a servant is not easy or fun. To be an employee is to be a servant, and we know how hard that can be at times. Some people start businesses and run them for the one basic reason that they could never submit to anyone - "I'm not going to submit to anyone." The more selfless you are, the easier it is to have a servant's heart, and you'll tend to be a good employee. Workers who are selfish and are all about themselves are a constant headache to coworkers and their employers.

The greater test of servanthood is to be linked with a group of people as peers where you are on an even plain - a family, a church, a sports team, a group of musicians. Will you be a selfless servant … or be selfish. To be selfish is to declare yourself free when you should be a servant - butting in line at a concert, hogging the biscuits … or more serious things like stealing, cheating, committing adultery, ignoring your kids, etc. "I'm not going to let my kids interfere with my career. I am free to do with my time and my life what I want."

Paul actually says here, "Although I am free, I have servantized myself to everybody." It wasn't a once-off decision. In v. 20, he says, "to the Jews, I became as a Jew." The word became is the same word translated "and it came to pass." Paul morphed over a period of time to become like those he was targeting with the gospel.

The purpose of being a servant and changing to become like someone is to win them to Christ. People are typically afraid of people from a different culture. Ignorance + fear = prejudice. What if a Chinese man came up to you and quickly presented a synopsis of his faith and asked you to join it? We receive truth more easily from people who are like us.

2. Morphing Yourself to Identify With Them (vv. 20-22)
It is not easy to morph to a different culture. This is the spirit of a missionary - we call it cultural adaptation. We move to foreign cultures and adapt. We learn to speak different languages, we learn to drive on the other side of the road, or not to drive a car at all, we learn to eat "interesting" foods, we learn to wear their styles, to like their kind of music, to play and enjoy their sports. After six months, culture shock kicks in and you scream out "I am tired of morphing! I am tired of being a servant!"

In the old days, missionaries from the UK and Europe came to Africa, India, and China to spread the gospel and didn't morph at all. They wore western clothes, built European church buildings for tribal Africans and told them to dress up in suits to go to church. Even today, fundamental missionaries in Haiti have been known to ship in containers full of suits to help the black Haitians to dress up in suits to go to church when it is 40 degrees with high humidity, and no air conditioning in church. In the last 15 years, the Gereformierde Kerk build 35 church buildings in KwaMhlanga and less than a handful have churches that meet in them, not one of them with a regular pastor.

In the late 1800s, men like Hudson Taylor broke the mold. Working among the Chinese with the British Missionary Society, he wondered why there were no converts. After much prayer, he shaved his head except for the lock that the Chinese wore, he put away his British clothing and wore Chinese tunics, he ran churches in homes or worse yet, outside … and his colleagues were indignant. They felt that because Christianity was strong in Britain, everything British was Christian, like afternoon tea. Others like Roland Allen had to write books like "Missionary Methods, St. Paul's or Ours?" to say that we need to keep Christianity simple and let the culture develop how it will look. We can't build European churches in Africa or India and have them last very long - the form is unnatural to those people.

How did Paul morph?
- To the Jews he became as a Jew, to those under the law (v. 20), which was interesting because Paul was a Jew. Maybe he wore a prayer shawl and joined them in celebrations and festivals.
- To those outside the law, Gentiles, as outside the law, yet not being lawless and immoral (v. 21). There are good and bad elements within any culture.
- To the weak, I became weak (v. 22)

A BIT OF APPLICATION
- To missionaries like us, it seems very inconsistent that churches say to us and to their missionaries, "go over there and learn the culture, learn the language, fit into the culture and give them the gospel," and at the same time refuse themselves to change with their culture.

- It is fine for us to blend in with the culture of Barcelona or Belarus or Buenos Aires, but it is not fine for a church in Boston to blend in with Boston culture.
- At my home church, missionaries could show pictures of themselves in Argentina leading worship with a guitar, but they could never play guitar in our church.

- This morphing servant principle today is not just for missionaries. It is for all believers, for everyone who has the gospel in their heart … Believers need to be in the world, being reflections of the good elements in their culture (not like the Amish) but not of the world.

- This morphing servant principle today is not just for missionaries. It is for the gatherings of all believers. Churches need to be reflections of the good elements within the culture. The new malls here in suburbia have a certain look, the Italian finishes, stone, slate, and earth tones. Churches should have the same - no lime green walls, furniture from the 80s. We mustn't change with fads, but identify the elements that will last for awhile. Why? We do it all for the sake of the gospel - v. 23 - so that we may share with them and win them. Sandton Bible Church is famous for its gardening - people would come because the place looked cozy and inviting.

Next week, the elders will be placing in your hands a proposal regarding a possible move to the New South premises, and we will ask you to pray, and then three weeks later vote on the matter. It will be no picnic, no walk in the park - I get tired just thinking about it. But let me ask you to look at what Paul says here in verse 19. At the end of the day, we must ask whether we are willing to get out of our comfort zone for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of getting more people the only truth that saves.

End with vv. 22-23