10 May “Leaving Country Club Christianity” (Learning to do anything to reach the lost…except compromise) PART 1

Have you ever met a snob?  You know the type of person I am talking about.  Someone whose nose is turned upside down and if it ever rained…they would drown!

Many years ago my wife and I were in Tulsa.  My father-in-law invited us to eat at a very fancy buffet in their country club.  Now my father-in-law is a very good man and is anything but a snob.  However there were many snobs present in the very high dollar country club.  There were many employees of the country club behind this buffet and I noticed that the people in line were being quite rude to the folks working the buffet.  Some were being short with them and others ignoring the employees altogether.

So I decided to go up to one of the workers and simply talk to him.  I said hello and he responded in kind and called me “sir.”  I quickly told him, “Please don’t call me sir, my name is Jim.  What’s your name?”  He then told me his name was A.J.  So I talked to A.J. for about 20 minutes just loving on him, making him laugh and encouraging him.  Nothing too heavy, just treating him with love and respect.

Now fast forward to the next day.  My father-in-law invited me to go golfing with him.  I had not golfed in years and I was much like John the Baptist…I spend a lot of time in the wilderness!  At about the fifth hole we came to a snack stand so we stopped to get some refreshments.  All of a sudden I heard a loud voice yelling, “Jim, Jim!”  I looked and sure enough it was A.J. coming over the hill on this golf course!  He just so “happened” to be coming on his shift at the snack stand the moment I was there.

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 16:33 (Amp) there are “events in life that seem accidental but are really ordered by the Lord.”  Now because I had loved on A.J. the day before, I had earned the voice of truth in his life.  (Remember:  Connection before correction.)  This time I was able to share the Gospel with A.J. and right there on the fifth hole…A.J. got marvelously born again!

The Bible says in I Corinthians 9:19-23, “For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.  And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ) that I might gain them that are without law.  To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak; I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.  And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker with you.”

The Greek word “gain” here in this verse is “kerdaino” and it means “to win or acquire.”  If I could summarize this verse I would simply say that Paul was willing to do anything to win the lost…except compromise!

Join us over the next few weeks as we share more from this series…