Greg Laurie - Evangelism, Jesus Style

before we start with this message which I'm calling evangelism Jesus style and our text is John chapter four so you might start making your way over there but before we start I'd like to have order prayer if you would let's pray father we've been commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel but honestly we don't always do this there's reasons we're afraid we're intimidated we're afraid of failure maybe we're even refrained of success sometimes but we know what you've called us to do so help us to do it like never before bless this event at the AT&T Stadium on March 6 we pray that thousands will come but even more that thousands will come to put their faith in Jesus Christ so let us be a part of that process we ask it in Jesus name Amen you know when we were praying about coming here to your great state to maybe do an event I met with a few key people in this area and of course they had to meet with your pastor who's so generous and welcoming and I said you know pastor Robert you have so many Christians here in this city do you really need an evangelistic event and he said Greg we have a lot of people going to hell in dallas-fort worth you need to come so I okay good so I felt encouraged and he was one of the first pastors to really encourage me to do this so I'm appreciative of that but why do we do this why do I do this why should we go out and preach the gospel well let me just sort of identify for you the who the where the why are the when of evangelism let's start with the who who is called to go into all the world and preach the gospel we are and where are we told to do that well we're told in Matthew 28 jesus said go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo I am with you even to the end of the age by the way that phrase lo I am with you it's not just for short people it's for all people he's with us lo hi everywhere in between so we've been commanded to do this now marks version of the same statement is go and preach the gospel so whose call to do it we are and by the way it's a command in the Greek that's why we call it the Great Commission and not the great suggestion but for many the Great Commission honestly has become the great omission we're not doing it and let me say something that might surprise some of you and here it is I believe for us to not share our faith could actually be a sin and you say now great you've gone too far but hold on there are sins of commission and sins of omission identified in the Bible you know the difference right heard about a Sindhi school teacher that was talking to her class about the sins of commission and omission and she asked the class does anyone know what the sin of comission is a little girl sitting in the front row raised her hand the teacher called on her what's the sin of comission honey she said the sin of comission is when we do what we should not do teacher said very good now can anyone tell me what the sin of omission is a little boy in the back of the class was waving his hand back and forth she called on him yes son what is this sin of omission he said the sin of omission those are the sins you want to do but you haven't gotten around to them yet no here it is the sin of comission is doing what I should not do breaking a commandment crossing the line the sin of omission is not doing what I should do and the Bible says listen to him that knows to do good and does not do it to him it is what sin you see so if I'm walking down the street and the house is on fire and I hear screams coming from inside the house I might be a hero and try to rush in and save the people at the very least I'm going to call 9-1-1 but if I were to continue walking without any concern for those people oh that would be criminal even more folks we have the gospel we have the answer we have the way for people to get to heaven and if we walk by with indifferent without caring there's something wrong so we are commanded by Jesus to go do this number two where are we supposed to do it answer everywhere everywhere so here's another way to translate it instead of just saying go into all the world how about this go into all of your world your world you have a world you have a sphere of influence go into all of your neighbourhood go into all of your workplace go into all of your campus go into all of your family and you preach the gospel here's a simple way of remembering it I call it fragile ism fragile ism he's saying you mean only evangelize people name friend no it's an acronym f stands for friends r stands for relatives a stands for associates n stands for neighbors fragile ISM evangelize your friends evangelize your associates evangelize your neighbors evangelize everyone everywhere number three why are we to do this now this is interesting to me because God's primary way of reaching people is through people now if I were God I might have done it differently I'm going to just roll the heavens back and poke my face through and one day said hello humanity I'm God and you're not why don't you all believe in me now no but God has chosen in His wisdom to reach people through people Romans 10:14 says how will they hear unless someone tells them and then over in first Corinthians 1:21 it says in the wisdom of God God was pleased to the foolishness of preaching to save those that believed the foolishness of preaching that doesn't say foolish preaching by the way but the foolishness of preaching or a better translation the foolishness of the preached thing and what is the preached thing it's the gospel that's how we are to do it and forth and lastly when are we to share the gospel all the time we must always be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit second Timothy 4:2 says preach the Word of God be persistent whether the time is favorable or not or another translation puts it this way be on duty at all times you never know when the Lord is going to call on you always be prepared I'm going to share a story now from my own life that might be a little odd to hear in church but this is absolutely true one day I had to go to the restroom I hope that doesn't shock you even we pastors have to do that of course we all do so I walked in in by the way when guys go to restrooms we always go solo you know you ever notice if you're together with a few couples and one girl will say I'm going to go to the restroom who wants to go with me a bunch of girls will go in guys will never do that we don't stand on restrooms and talk our objective is to get in and out as quickly as possible or even kind of embarrassed we're in there so I go and I take a seat don't get a visual just don't job just there sit stop and I hear someone cleared their throat in the stall next to me like you know whatever I don't talk to people around them I don't even want to acknowledge them there and then I'm sitting there and this voice says hi so in this masculine is it tone as I could muster I said hi a couple of moments go by the guy says were you supposed to meet me here I'm like uh oh I don't I don't know what's going on here and I said no he said oh and I said then I was curious what's going on with this guy what someone's supposed to meet you here yeah he was gonna bring something to me I know I'm curious what was he gonna bring he said some drugs ah and then I said hey I have something better for you than drugs and he said what and I said a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ at this moment I stopped and I said can you evangelize on a restroom well the Holy Spirit actually be present in this weird place and convicting human artists shall I wait till I'm afterwards I'm thinking this is madness but I'm already in at this point so I tell him my relationship with God through Jesus Christ he says oh I already tried that I said really says yes I went I went to church oh did you where did you go to church he said harvest Christian Fellowship well that's a church I've pastored for 40 years I had to laugh I thought this is from the Lord I said buddy do you know who I am he said no I said I'm Greg Laurie the pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship this is what he said oh my god great moment so I said listen God must really love you to send your pasture to you when you're trying to make a drug Buy so I want to meet you after my evangelism in the bathroom was done I said I'll be waiting outside and he was the easy guy to spot he was the guilty looking one and listen I was able to lead him and a recommitment to cry so be on duty at all times you never know when the Lord's gonna Haul on call on you so here's the big one now how are we to share the gospel and that brings us to our theme here in John 4 in this message and calling Jesus evangelism Jesus style Jesus Christ is not only fully God and fully man he's not only the savior of the world but Jesus Christ was the best communicator ever and he shows us how to share our faith right here in John chapter 4 the reason I called it Jesus style as we see his style is a lot different than a lot of other people's style it's very relational it's very loving but yet it's very direct you know we have different styles you have Texas style where everything is big everything's big here I mean the portions that are served in restaurants I'm like seriously by the way on my last trip here I discovered this place called babes you know that place if I keep eating there I'm going to be a lot bigger I'll tell you that best fried chicken biscuits I've ever had in fact I'm going there right now god bless No so that's Texas style then if you go to Hawaii they do things Island style right here's someone from Hawaii are you guys from Hawaii has a bra all right you know that kind bra you know I'm speaking to him in pidgin a little bit all right that's Island style well this is evangelism Jesus style he shows us how to do it let's start with this basic principle in sharing our faith our is to build a bridge not burn one build a bridge not burn one I have seen people go up to non-believers unload both gospel barrels on them and win the argument and lose the soul that's not our objective we want to win them for Christ so here's something to know about people you talk to here's everyone's favorite subject themselves everyone loves to talk about themselves what's that favorite kind of photography today selfies of course so it's good to engage a person and here's Jesus engaging a very interesting woman we don't know her name we just know her as the woman at the well we didn't know this about her she was married and divorced five times and she was living with the guy so she was a woman living in an immoral lifestyle frankly she reminds me a little bit of my own mother because my mother was married in divorce not five but seven times and I went on her wild ride all around the United States with all the guys she married and the boyfriends in between she was also a raging alcoholic and I think my mother thought that a man was going to meet the deepest need of her life and of course no man ever did she thought alcohol would do it and alcohol didn't do it either so I understand this woman a little bit she's searching and so now here she comes into contact with Jesus at a well she comes at the hardest part of the day 12:00 noon and the reason for that is all the other girls who drew water from the well would come early in the morning catch up on the latest town gossip but not this woman because she was ostracized no one wanted to be seen with her but Jesus was not only willing to be seen with her he was willing to reach out to her how are we going to reach a non-believer if we don't communicate with them sometimes as Christians were so worried about getting contaminated and we're trying to separate ourselves we're not supposed to separate we're supposed to permeate and infiltrate this world with a message of the gospel we need to go where people are so let's read what happened John for starting to verse three he love Judea and the part of the Galilee but he needed to go through Samaria if you have a pen you might underline that line he needed to go so he came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph and Jacob's Well was there Jesus therefore being wearied from his journey sat down by the well around the 6:00 hour that's 12:00 noon a woman of Samaria came to draw water and Jesus said to her give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food then the woman of Samaria said to it to him how is it that you being a Jew would ask for a drink from me a Samaritan woman for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans jesus answered and said if you knew the gift of God and who it was who says to you give me a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water here's a few principles you might want to jot down there on the screen as well I believe that will help you in sharing your faith number one effective evangelism or evangelism Jesus style starts with caring let me put it another way sharing starts with caring I know that sounds like something a Care Bear would say you know what a Care Bear is see I have four granddaughters alright so I've watched Care Bear cartoons and there are these little bears in different colors and then their hearts rainbows come out and they'll say things like we care a lot we care a lot well it sounds like some a Care Bear would say and on this point it's theologically correct listen all the training and evangelism all the memorization of Bible verses all the preparation and apologetics is going to do you one bit of good if you don't care about lost people and here's my question do you you said well I do okay let me ask you a follow-up question then when's the last time you engage someone in a conversation about Jesus Christ so it starts there and Jesus cared how do we know we read he needed to go through Samaria why was that a faster way back home no it actually took him out of the way he needed to go because it was a burned-out immoral woman who was going to come to a well at 12 noon and she unbeknownst to her had an appointment with God and there are people out there that have an appointment with God and the Lord wants to use you to reach those people here's something you need to know about our event 80% plus of those that come forward at our evangelistic events and make a profession of faith to follow Christ were brought by a friend so we have to care it starts with this and we need to go to people that excuse me are different than us see this woman was accurate when she said why would you a Jew be dealing with me a Samaritan don't you know we don't talk to each other there was a racial divide between them we have to leave our comfort zone go to people that are older than us younger than us different races than us enter their world with love and with the message of the gospel sometimes we don't want to go I don't want to talk to that person Lord God once spoke to a man named Jonah and said go to Nineveh and preach to the people there well Jonah being a patriotic Israelite didn't want to do it because the Ninevites the Assyrians or his enemy they were wicked and did horrible things that to people before they killed them almost remind you a little bit of the Nazis or Isis the kinds of things the Ninevites would do so God said go and preach I'm Nona Nona that's Jonah's brother Nona you haven't heard about him he's an interesting guy I'll talk about him next time now there's no known it was slipping anyway so Jonah when Jonah goes to Nineveh he's Nona that's how it works a kid just so Jonah doesn't want to go because he reasons if I go and preach to them and they repent then God will spare them but if I don't go and preach to them they won't repent and God will destroy him that's one less enemy to worry about so he went in the opposite direction catching a boat going as far away from Nineveh as possible you might say that Jonah was the original chicken of the sea well you know the rest of the story a great storm came the sailors called out to their various gods they determined Jonah was the culprit he said if you throw me over the storm will stop they did he was swallowed by a great fish after spending three days and three nights and the belly of the beast he came to his senses and repented and the fish cruise right up to the shore of Nineveh and barked him out right there anyone in preached him one of the greatest revivals in human history happened as a result God said go Jonah said no God said Oh God will always have the last word so we have to go number two if you want to evangelize Jesus style you need to use tact TAC TAC t it's been defined as the intuitive knowledge of saying the right thing at the right time Isaac Newton defined tact as the ability to make a point without making an enemy notice how Jesus engaged her he could have said hey you a moral chick come here I'm God you're not you're going to hell so would that have been true technically yes but what does he do he excuse me can I have a drink of water he draws her out he shows even a vulnerability I love that listen I'm not better than anybody else I'm not better than a non-believer better off but not better I'm just one bigger telling another beggar where to find food it's all I am so you go with humility not some know-it-all NOT some pompous person holier-than-thou just hey man let me tell you what I have discovered could I have a little drink of water see he entered her world and here's a problem a lot of times we end the conversation before it starts because we bombard people with what I like to call Christianese Christianese has our own strange language that only we understand and we'll use it in talking to a non-believer and they don't know what we're saying well walk up to him and say excuse me heathen can I talk to you for a moment are you washed in the blood and by that I mean are you justified and sanctified and are you part of the body do you realize how freaky that sounds you just told them to get washed in blood and being somebody else's body they don't think you're talking about UFOs say Greg are you suggesting we not use biblical terminology no I'm suggesting we not assume our listener understands biblical terminology because we have the most biblically illiterate generation around us right now we have to define our terms and speak in a language that people understand and we need to do it tactfully and remember when you're sharing your faith it's not a monologue it's a dialogue Jesus dialogue with this woman now when I stand here behind this podium it's a monologue basically but when I talked to a person one-on-one it's a dialogue and you might be surprised to know that it's easier for me to stand behind a pulpit and talk about my faith and it is to engage a total stranger in conversation that is why I now have a pulpit on wheels I take with me everywhere I keep it in the trunk I pull it out when I go to the market I push it down the aisle put food on top of it right opportunity opens up have you ever heard about Jesus no I don't do that I'm just kidding but some of the idea is that you listen you and as you listen then you respond to what they say and that's exactly what Jesus did with this person some people are just lacking in tact I was walking down the street once and there was a guy standing there with a big sign and painted in bull black letters it said the wages of sin are death which is true it's in Romans and he had flames painted on it for effect and he's yelling you're going to hell you're going to go you're gonna burn he almost seemed happy about it so I walked up to this guy and he's up on a step what kind of yelling at everyone Ellen over my head I said excuse me he said you're all going down you're gonna burn pardon me for a moment you're all going are you gonna do you're gonna be judged she's like what I said why don't you paint on the other side of your sign the wages of sin are death but then the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord you could flip it around periodically you know then he told me I was going to hell now here's my point is it true and if a person doesn't believe in Jesus or go to hell yes that's true but it's also true that God loves them and will forgive them of their sin and sometimes we share our faith in an obnoxious way and then when someone rejects it we say praise God I'm persecuted for righteousness sake Alleluia no you're persecuted because you're weird that's why and there's a lot of weird Christians out there so stop it how many of you are weird no don't raise your hand okay problem is the weird people never know it let's get persecuted for the right reasons Jesus engages her he draws her out he uses her well that she's going to as a metaphor for life hey if you drink of this well you'll thirst again and in this sense he's saying the well of life you know some drink at the well of material things some drink at the well of sex others drink at the well of pleasure others drink at the well of success if you drink of any of these wells you'll thirst again but he says if you drink of the water that I give you'll never thirst again and the water will wall up into a fountain I want you to notice how he adapted to her adapted to her situation listen there's not a one-size-fits-all approach to evangelism everyone's different Jesus dealt one way with the woman at the well a different way with Nicodemus and the chapter before this the religious leader he done in another way with the rich young ruler and even another way with Zacchaeus and then there was a woman caught in adultery we don't want to be robotic when we do this we want to do it in a way where we're connecting with the person but what do we want to say we want to bring them the message of the gospel what is the gospel let me share the gospel with you very briefly here's the gospel the gospel is that God loves all of humanity but we've all broken his Commandments and fallen short of his standards and we've all sinned no matter what we do we cannot bridge that gap on our own but God loved us so much at 2,000 years ago he sent His Son Jesus Christ who was fully God and fully man to be born in that manger in Bethlehem to walk among us he walked in our shoes he breathed our air he lived our life then he died our death and he took the judgment of God that should have come upon us upon himself and he rose again from the dead three days later and now Jesus who died and rose is alive and standing at the door of every human heart and it will open the door and ask him to come into our life and turn from our sin we will be forgiven that's a very simple presentation of the gospel I'll do that at AT&T Stadium on March 6 but you can all do that we can all do this let me just add one thing before I use up all my time and that is my time just ended idea just went to zero just like that I think they did that on purpose and it was really good too but I'm not going to go along today there's a lot more I could say a lot of it's in my book but I just wanted to say that's not I'm saying it but I'll say it briefly one of the most powerful tools in your evangelistic toolbox is your own personal testimony it's a great way to start a conversation Paul the Apostle was a brilliant orator and communicator and a great intellect but in almost every instance where we see him bringing the gospel to non-believers he started with his own story you have a story now I know some stories are more dramatic than others you know some came out of a life of crime some were addicted to drugs or alcoholics or or were well known people who had these great accomplishments and you never did any of those things but your story is still valid here's your testimony in a nutshell once you were blind now you see once you were going to hell now you're going to heaven use your story as a way to bridge the gap because when you share your story it's a way to share the gospel with someone without preaching at them you see and then you use your story to take them to his story that's where the power is it's the message of Jesus Christ that's why Paul said I don't want to hear anything else among you except Christ and him crucified sometimes in our attempts to cross over we forget to bring the cross over tell them Jesus died for them tell them Jesus rose again tell them Jesus can change them and before you know it you will be leading people to Jesus Christ I'd like to close with a prayer today and I would like to ask you to join me in this prayer but I only want you to do it if you mean it but it's really a prayer of commitment let's pray God will give it to us that's all bow our heads and pray father we've heard your word now and you've told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel and Lord it's a daunting task it overwhelms at times but what did you say you said lo you're with us even to the end of the age you'll give us a strength you'll give us the power you'll give us the words but Lord what you're looking for from us is openness willingness for someone to say Here I am Lord send me so here we are Lord send us if you want the Lord to use you in this way pray this prayer out loud right where you sit after me again if you want God to use you and evangelism use you to bring other people to him pray this after me but let me warn you if you pray to mean it you might have an opportunity before the day is over pray this after me Lord Jesus you've told me to go into all the world and preach the gospel but I've not always done this as I should but I want to so here I am Lord send me fill me with the power of your Holy Spirit power to be a witness for you open up doors of opportunity for me today to share my faith use me Lord to bring other people to you I ask it in Jesus name a father you've heard those prayers music to your ears because heaven rejoices when a sinner repents use us Lord to be your representatives to a lost and dying world we commit ourselves to you now in Jesus name we pray amen

Channel: gatewaychurchtv

Views: 48,132

Rating: 4.7807407 out of 5

Keywords: gatewaypeople, Gateway Church, Southlake, Texas, DFW, Lord, God, Jesus, Christ, Church, Bible, Truth, Restoration, Heal, Greg Laurie, Harvest America, Harvest Christian Fellowship, evangelism, Jesus Style

Id: Hresb8iuJrE

Length: 29min 57sec (1797 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2016