Elements of this sermon were taken from K. Edward Skidmore’s sermon "Evangelism 2 Tell A Friend" found here on Sermoncentral (http://sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=88617)
A CHURCHY FOCUS
-I took all my sciences in high school, and one of the things we learned were the Laws of Thermodynamics, laws that are always true and never change in the order of God’s created universe. The second law is that the universe is constantly moving from a state of order to a state of disorder. Getting worse, rusting.
-I always wondered how evolution fit into that…
-Matt Mittelburg wrote in his book “Building A Contagious Church” there are spiritual laws of thermodynamics, and his second one for Christians is much like Newton’s for the universe, just with a slight twist. If left to themselves, Christians move towards self-centeredness.
-it’s true, have you seen how cliquey church people are?
-but it goes beyond that. Christians when not challenged or reminded of who they are and what Christ asked of them will start to worry more about themselves and what can be done for them rather than the other way around.
-one pastor did a survey and asked Christians what the purpose of the Church is. 89% said to, “take care of my needs and my family.”
-hmm. Me, me, me. Not a very American mindset, is it?
-likewise, only 11% said the purpose of the church was, “to win the word to Christ.” (Purpose Driven Church, p.82)
-I don’t remember Jesus saying that the church was going to be centered around it’s followers. I even think there was something Jesus said about denying ourselves, something about taking up our own cross. [PUT VERSE ON THE SCREEN] O look, there it is.
**Mark 8:34 -> 34Then, calling the crowd to join His disciples, He said, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me. (GNT)
-we need to be telling people about Jesus. But it’s not easy for most people because they’re worried.
1. DON’T BE AFRAID
-it’s not an unfounded fear. “What will people think about me?” “What if they don’t agree?” “What if I offend someone?”
-or the big one, “What if they say ‘no’?”
-no one wants to be rejected. No one wants to pour their heart out to someone or invite a friend to something and then have them say no to their face.
-but we have to realize our job as Christians, our purpose given to us by Christ is not to make people believe. We can’t do that. I can’t make you believe something, but I can tell you all the facts so you can make an informed decision. I can tell you about what God has done in my life. I can show you the path I have taken and why.
-but just because we can’t make someone believe doesn’t excuse us from telling people about Jesus.
**II Cor. 5:18 -> 18All this is from God. Through Christ, God made peace between us and Himself, and God gave us the work of telling everyone about the peace we can have with Him. (NCV)
-God gave us this work. I’ll be honest, some days I wonder why. Dogs are more obedient than people, why not have them spread the gospel?
-but God gave it to us. It’s something we are supposed to do, not something that we’re suggested to do. It’s what we do as a part of the family of God.
-in my family it wasn’t a request that I chop firewood. I was told to chop firewood or else the house was cold. This is one of those things that we need to do.
-and it’s normal to be afraid. Even the disciples were afraid. But Jesus does not allow being afraid as an excuse. This story take place the day Jesus rose from the dead.
**John 20:19-21 -> 19That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” He said. 20As He spoke, He showed them the wounds in His hands and His side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! 21Again He said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you.” (NLT)
-they were locked in a room because they were scared of admitting they were Christians. Jesus had been crucified two days ago. But on Sunday, He appeared and didn’t give them any time to feel better. As God sent Jesus, so He was sending them. That was Jesus’ prayer on the night He was betrayed.
-they didn’t have time to get over their fear. If we really needed to take the time to get over our fear, attend a workshop, etc. would we actually do it?
-sometimes we don’t need a lot of instruction, we just need to do it. We can learn all we want about skydiving, but at some point we have to jump out of the plane no matter how scared we are.
-but it’s easy to share about Jesus if we are excited about Him.
2. WE SHARE WHAT WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT
-if you are excited about something, you can’t keep it a secret.
-right now we’re in the middle of football fever. The Colts are playing tonight for the AFC title. Can you tell looking around the city? Even here at the church, listening to the conversations, can you tell?
-of course, people are excited! And they share it.
-and it doesn’t matter if it’s the Colts. Last year it was the Steelers, and people came out of the woodwork wearing black and gold. Why? They’re not ashamed anymore. Their team was winning so they were excited!
-when you’re excited about something, you can’t keep it a secret!
-for me, I watch “24”. I really like “24”. It’s pretty sad. Lorie made sure to record the Sunday night premier since I was at the winter retreat and we watched it all on Monday.
-since then I’ve found so many people in the church who watch “24”. My mom emailed me to let me know it was on. My computer is set to record it no matter what.
-why? I like it. So I didn’t mind telling people about “24”.
-you know what else? I like Jesus. I don’t mind telling people about Jesus. I’m excited about Him.
-it wasn’t always like that. What really made it easy was going to Bible College and becoming a youth pastor. It’s hard to keep Jesus a secret when you go to school to tell people about Him or when your job revolves around Him.
-and you know what else? People don’t freak out about it. They listen. They even ask questions sometimes because now they know someone they can talk to.
-I just had to get to a point in my life where He was so much a part of it that I was excited about Him, and I couldn’t keep Him a secret.
**Jer. 20:9 -> 9Sometimes I say to myself, “I will forget about the Lord. I will not speak anymore in His name.” But then His message becomes like a burning fire inside me, deep within my bones. I get tired of trying to hold it inside of me, and finally, I cannot hold it in. (NCV)
-if you’re excited about it, you can’t keep quiet.
-my sister-in-law works with a girl who goes to a church she’s excited about. How do I know? My sister-in-law asked Lorie and I about it because she wanted to know why this woman kept talking about her church.
-if you’re excited about God and where you worship Him, people will know. People will ask.
-but to get people to Jesus, they need to be invited.
3. INVITATION
-people don’t just magically decide to follow Jesus. I can guarantee that almost all of you, I won’t say everyone, were in some way or somehow invited to church be it by a friend, a parent forcing you as a child, I don’t know, somehow you were invited.
-in the gospels we have 40 different stories of Jesus healing people. Of those 40, 34 people were brought by someone to Jesus by friends or acquaintances.
-someone needed to invite them. So if when Jesus was on earth and people could go up to Him and physically talk to Him people needed to be invited, why do we think it’s different now?
-Jesus’ disciples even needed to be invited to follow Him and work with Him.
**John 1:35-42a -> 35The following day John was again standing with two of his disciples. 36As Jesus walked by, John looked at Him and declared, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” 37When John’s two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus. 38Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” He asked them. They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” 39“Come and see,” He said. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when they went with Him to the place where He was staying, and they remained with Him the rest of the day. 40Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of these men who heard what John said and then followed Jesus. 41Andrew went to find his brother, Simon, and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means “Christ”). 42Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. (NLT)
-even Peter, the main disciple, the one on whom this whole institution of the church we are celebrating this morning was founded, he had to be invited by a friend, in this case his brother, to meet Jesus. He didn’t magically decide to do it one day, he didn’t wake up one morning and look for Jesus.
-Andrew had to be told about Jesus, then Andrew had to invite Peter to meet Jesus.
-Jesus’ whole purpose in coming was not to deal with people who were already a part of the institutionalized religion. He didn’t come to fix things in house. His whole purpose in coming was to offer forgiveness and a relationship with His Father and to invite people into this relationship.
**Matt. 9:13b -> 13”I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.” (MSG)
-Jesus came to invite people into a relationship with Him.
-this week I was talking with our new Kaleidoscope Kids director Sharon and she told me about how she had heard people talking about church, how they sounded like they had so much fun, how they cared for each other and how she had thought to herself, “Wow, that seems like a great place to be.” but no one ever actually invited her to church so she spent years looking for God.
-people want to be invited. You don’t show up to a party if you’re not invited, unless you’re really rude or someone in my family, why do you think church is any different. That’s why we made all these brochures, CD’s all these tools to help you invite people to come with you. Please don’t just hand them to people and go “here” and walk away. Invite people to come here with you.
-inviting people to Jesus is a part of our church’s purpose. It’s in our mission statement, something we believe everyone that is a part of this church should be living by. “God calls us into the world to help all people come closer to Jesus as we worship, serve and grow together.”
-we are to help people come closer to Jesus, and to help people do that we need to tell them and invite them to have what we have, something I hope you’re excited to have. But we need to tell our friends, they won’t just magically know what we’re about or show up.
**Ro. 10:14 -> 14But how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them? (NLT)
-people need to hear first, that’s where we come in.
-I don’t know where you are with Jesus, He’s always willing to start that relationship with you or deepen it, but starting it is easy. We try so hard to make the gospel message complicated but it isn’t. Believe is a real person living now and ask that He forgive our sins since He paid the price for them, then start living our lives for Him, trying to deepen that relationship we started. That’s it. That’s what this world needs to hear.
-one last story. It’s about the day Jesus returned to heaven. The Angel Gabriel asked Jesus to explain what had happened down there on earth.
He asked, “Did they make you King?” Jesus answered, “No.”
“Did they make you prince?” “No.”
“Did they worship you?” “Most of them didn’t.”
“Well then, what happened?” “They crucified me.”
“But after you rose from the Dead, everyone worshipped you, right?” “No.”
“So, what is your plan?” “I left my people down there.”
Gabriel looked skeptical.
“But if they fail ---- What is your other plan?”
Jesus replied, “I have no other plan.”
-we are Plan A. There is no Plan B.
-like I said, I don’t know where you are with Jesus, if you would like to start a relationship with Him, there are many of us here who would love to talk to you. If you have a relationship with Him, are you excited about it? Are you sharing it?
