“Do It For the Father:” 4 Ways You Can Promote the Gospel During “Mafia Week.”

For those of you participating in Denton Mafia, here are 4 ways that you can promote the gospel through your participation this week:

 

 

PRACTICE HOSPITALITY.

 

Three times in the New Testament, Christians are commanded to practice “hospitality (Rom. 12:13; Heb. 13:2; 1 Pet 4:9).”  We are implored to extend hospitality both the “the saints” and to “strangers.”  Your food.  Your floor space.  Your furniture.  All used for the sake of blessing other people.  Essentially, hospitality implies that we do not draw a line between “what’s yours” and “what’s mine.”  Everything that I have is yours!  I don’t care if I’m inconvenienced.  I don’t care if it cost me money.  I don’t care if it makes a mess.  I don’t care if you don’t say “Thank you.”

 

Because God, through Jesus has not witheld anything from me (Eph 1:3), I am free to give away everything to you so that you might be blessed.

 

Our God is a hospitable God.  He reached out to you and and invited them in at his own expense.  He met you in your need and provided for you more than you ever expected in Christ.  Therefore, because you are the recipient of God’s radical hospitality, you can be radically hospitable to others.  Because God has not withheld from you, you are free to not withhold anything from others.

 

 

 

BUILD FRIENDSHIPS WITH PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW JESUS.

 

Christians are pretty good at knowing non-Christians — from their classes, their workplace, their apartment complexes — but we are typically poor at being their friend.  We would love to share the love of Jesus with them, we just don’t want to share our downtime with them.  That is my time!  Its not like we have anything in common, right?

 

Question: How much did Jesus have in common with you, a sinner?  Yet “He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself…for US (Phil 2:6)!  He who had everything made himself nothing so that you and I might become something!

 

Mafia week will give many of you the opportunity to build genuine friendships with non-Christians.  Perhaps in one of your late-night stake-outs, you are able to find out what they love, what they hate, what they are passionate about…and here’s the crazy part: You might find out that you have a lot in common!  You may actually like them…and hang out on the weekends.  You among their friends.  Them among yours.  I pray that you would quickly gain a similar reputation to that of our Savior: “Friend of Sinners.”

 

 

 

GROW IN HUMILITY

 

Very few things stir up pride in us like competition.  Yet, you have the opportunity during the course of the week to use your endeavors as a family to be “first,” as an opportunity to be “last” (Matt 19:30).  Rather than tear people down to exalt yourself, build people up through encouraging words and actions.  ”Hey, great kill!  Man, I’ve never seen anybody handle a spork like that!  You are gifted, my friend.”

 

Okay, that’s a stretch.  But you get the point.  The competitive nature of Mafia week does not give you a free pass from imitating Jesus.  Therefore, use this week as an opportunity to serve others.  Remember the follow adage from pastor Tommy:

 

“If Jesus can wash his disciples feet, I can [blank] my families [blank].”  You fill in the blanks.

 

 

 

DIE WELL.

 

Most of you will die.  Some of you will die shameful, embarrassing deaths.  In the wake of your humiliation, you might be tempted to throw a temper-tantrum and cry like a little baby.  But you don’t have to.  If you died, it’s your fault.  Your enemy deserves credit for effectively studying, stalking, and assassinating you.  So if you get shanked, die well.

 

Remember: Jesus didn’t [you know what] and moan all the way to the cross.  He shut his mouth.  He accepted the consequences of his circumstances.  Even though he was cheated, lied to, falsely accused, and insulted, he died well.

 

Men who live for their own glory don’t die well.  Jesus died well because He lived for the glory of His Father.  Do the same.