Who can you Impact?

1. Is there a social group that you tend to reflect? For instance, in school, would someone describe you as a jock? a dancer? a skater? or any other group? How hard would it be for you to be associated with another group of people? What would you have to do in order to go from a jock to a skater?




Read 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

2. What was Paul’s goal here?



3. How was he going to accomplish this?



4. Why would this be effective and how could it be ineffective?




Additional Thoughts & Application:

Paul’s goal was to win as many people to Christ as possible. He seemed teachable and appeared to change tactics all the time to reach people for Christ. That is even more clear here in these verses. According to these verses, he “became” whatever group of people he wanted to reach. If he was after Jewish people, he became like them.

I want to caution you, though, when we attempt to become like those who we are trying to win to Christ, it can become easy to start being impacted by them and their lifestyle rather than they being impact by you. For example, if you are trying to win friends from the baseball team and they like to go party. You can go along with them to the parties, but remember why you are there. Do not sacrifice your witness and potential impact by giving in and thinking you have to do what they do and be like them exactly to win them for Christ. That is not what Paul is implying here.

Paul did not sacrifice who God made him to be. What Paul was doing here was helping every person, whether Jew or Gentile, free or slave, white or black, come to know Christ. He wanted to take away any barriers that prohibited a person from coming to know Christ. But, he never gave in to worldly temptations to win them for Christ.

Young Life has a great saying, “Every kid”. Simply put, they are out to reach every student for Christ. In the same way, we should be after everyone. You may be most effective reaching students who are just like you (i.e., if you are a baseball player, you are most likely to identify and reach baseball playing/knowledgeable people). But that should not limit you from being able to share Christ with a person who is involved in the Chess Club.

This week, pray that God would identify a group of people to you so that you can become like them in order to win them for Christ. It won’t happen overnight, but as you begin to win their trust, you can begin to win them to Christ. Also, pray for an opportunity for God to open doors so that you might be able to share Christ with them. Now, tell a friend so that they could help and encourage you as well as be challenged for themselves.

Pray