Point Someone To Jesus

Introduction

Good evening, everyone. My Bible’s open to Galatians chapter 6. Need you to turn to Galatians 6, verse 9. As I’m getting ready and loading Galatians 6, let me just say a word of appreciation to this fine church, to your elders here who have arranged and provided for this opportunity to study and to think more carefully and deeply about the things of God. What a fine flock. And I can see good shepherding here because I see so many good sheep serving the Lord in a powerful way. It’s been a joy to be with Tony and Sherry. They hold a special place in my heart. And it’s always good to be with them and to be sharpened. Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. I appreciate Tony very much.

And I must say a word or two about all these young people. They have listened so carefully. They’re sitting in the blast zone, just pretty close right here, and they’ve been tremendously encouraging. And I know a thousand and one things are going on in your life, and you’ve been here and you’ve taken notes and you’ve encouraged me. And I’ve just loved it, just enjoyed being with you so very much. In fact, on Sunday, I asked all of you to be here and to pray for the meeting and to open your hearts. And we’d work in God’s word to uncover and to discover the things that we need to do to be everyday disciples, and you’ve done that in a great way. I thank you so much.

It has been a joy for me to have the opportunity to talk with you about the things of the Lord. This is a fine church. What preachers look for is people who want to do what’s right. Because when you’re with those kind of folks, there’s just no ceiling to what can be accomplished. And there is no ceiling to what God can do through the brethren here at Ducker Prairie. You have treated me so well. Hospitality and good meals, fine encouragement and warm handshakes. I have enjoyed being with you. And Brother Tony is right. I am going to Dallas this evening. My wife’s in Dallas, and I’m going home to see her, which means I’m going to preach about seven minutes. All right. How about Galatians 6, verse 9?

Then I’ll go see Dana. Galatians 6 and verse 9. Let us not, Paul says, Galatians 6 9, let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. Against the backdrop of that verse, can I ask you a question? What do these three things have in common? Jumping over the moon? Walking on water? Trying to have an evangelistic conversation with someone about Jesus Christ. If you answered those three things are just about impossible to do, you’re on the right track. In fact, sometimes I think it would be easier to walk on water than it is to try to help somebody understand their lost condition and their need for the Savior, Jesus the Christ. We seem to be living in a time when people are becoming increasingly hostile to all things associated with faith and with God.

We seem to be in a time when people don’t care and don’t want to care and don’t want you to change that. So you asked someone to come to the meeting, and they didn’t come, did they? Just like the last time you asked, and the time before that, and the time before that, and the time before that. People have their own beliefs or their own lack of beliefs, and they would appreciate it if you did not talk about that. So what’s the use of even trying? We are. We are weary in well doing. We try so hard to talk to people about Jesus Christ, and nothing happens. So after a while, we get tired of being tired and just quit. And the somber silence in this room tells me that you know exactly what I’m talking about.

You understand that you are not alone. It seems that Noah preached a hundred years and nobody listened to him. Jeremiah preached more than 40 years. Nobody listened to him. They threw him in a muddy cistern. Even our Lord. Three years of preaching and teaching, and the last thing the disciples asked before he ascended is now, do we get our swords? Are we casting the Romans out? Let’s go to battle. It does seem like spiritual conversations, helping people see the truth, helping people want the truth is very difficult. We assume sometimes that if we teach enough people, there ought to be some kind of visible result, shouldn’t there? And then, of course, what happens? We have some guy to come talk with us about personal evangelism.

Brother Big Worker comes, and what’s the first thing he tells us all about? Let me tell you what happened to me on the plane. I opened my Bible, I was reading my Bible, and the person next to me said, Do you know something about the Bible? And I said, Well, yes, I’m a preacher of the gospel. He said, Would you teach me the Bible? And the guy in the road there, he said, Well, I want to learn the Bible. And the guy up there said, Well, teach me the Bible. I just went to the front of the plane, grabbed the microphone, and taught everybody. We barely landed in the river and we baptized them all. And we’re sitting there thinking, that would never happen to me.

That would never happen to me. It’s just frustrating, isn’t it? It seems like evangelism is something that regular disciples can’t really do. So somebody talks about everyday discipleship. What do you mean? Every day I’m going to point somebody to Jesus. What I want to do this evening is help regular folks with evangelism. And I’m not going to tell you that if you do this gimmick or crazy technique, you’re going to baptize 3,000 people tomorrow, because you’re not. Jesus said, few there be that find it. And I think Jesus is right, no matter what Brother Gimmick tells us. And I’m not going to tell you a bunch of stuff about having to know everything about everything in scripted answers. I think most of our evangelism problems come because we’re making it harder than it ought to be.

We’re putting more pressure on ourselves than we should. We don’t understand what it’s all about, and we’ve lost hope. And this evening, if we’re going to talk about pointing people to Jesus every day, what we need to do is get some hope. And I’m going to John 4. I’m going to John 4 to learn what Jesus says about evangelism. Would you read with me in the fourth chapter of John? In John chapter 4, I’m reading there beginning in verse 31. The disciples return and find Jesus in an evangelistic conversation. That’s really not that unusual for Jesus, of course, but it is a woman. And it is a Samaritan woman. They’re a little uncertain about that. John 4 31, the disciples said then to one another, Rabbi eat, the disciples urged him saying, Rabbi eat.

He said to them, I have food, John 4 32, you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, Has anyone brought him something to eat? Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, There are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true. One sows and another reaps. I have sent you to reap that for which you did not labor, others have labored, and you have entered in to their labor.

1. God's Work Includes Reaping and Sowing

In that discussion, I think Jesus gives us some key truths about what it means as an everyday disciple to try to point people to Jesus Christ. And I just want to work with you a little bit and help us all see that, because that gives us real hope in evangelism. That begins with some understanding that when we’re pointing people to Jesus, God’s work includes reaping and sowing. If I ask you about detective work, what do you think detectives do? We all know what detectives do. They get in big shootouts, and there’s gunplay going on like every day. And then they call all the suspects into the room and they lay out all the evidence, and then they say, You’re the one that did the murder.

That’s what being a detective. Okay, that’s what being a detective is like in Hollywood. But that’s not what being a detective really is all about. I’ve had the privilege to know some brethren who are detectives, and mostly being a detective involves sitting in really boring stakehouse where nothing happens, and going through endless phone records and lots of detailed, careful analysis, boring, tedious work. In the same way, when we start talking about evangelism, what do we think evangelism is? Evangelism is that golden moment when we’ve laid out this just absolutely airtight case for baptism, and then the prospect says, Oh, see, here is water. What does hinder me from being baptized? Woohoo! We got another one. It’s just going to be so great. We think of evangelism in terms of baptisms.

But Jesus says something different. Jesus says, if there’s going to be reaping, there has to be sowing first. Look at verse 35 again. There Jesus says, Do you not say, there are yet four months and comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. If the fields are white, that’s because somebody did the hard work of planting. This is the forgotten truth about evangelism. Evangelism is a process, it is a teaching process that takes time. Before you can reap, somebody, in fact, has to sow. Somebody has to teach. Think about it. Even when Jesus came, God sent John the Baptist as the forerunner in front of Jesus. Remember that in Mark and Mark chapter one?

Hold your place in John 4. We’re coming back. But in Mark chapter 1. Remember John the Baptist? Mark’s gospel begins in the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark 1 2, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make his path straight. So, Mark 1 4, John appeared. Jesus had a forerunner, someone who came and sowed even before he came and did even more sowing. God knew that if Jesus broke onto the scene with his radical message of repentance and the kingdom of God without some preparation, people would miss it. They wouldn’t be ready.

So John the Baptist went ahead to sow, to get people ready to get their hearts prepared. You can’t just reap all the time. There has to be sowing. Think of the implications of that. Oftentimes in our evangelistic work, we’re all about the reaping. So here I’m talking to my Muslim friend, and I’m talking to him about he needs to be baptized for the remission of sin. He doesn’t accept the Bible as the unaltered word of God.

I might need to do some sowing before I try to do some reaping. Here’s a friend who doesn’t go anywhere to church, doesn’t believe in God. I asked them, hey, would you come to church to me? Nope, not doing that. Okay, we just write them off. We’re all done here. Maybe I need to back up a couple of steps and start talking about why I believe in God and some evidences for God’s existence and what creation says about the Lord. Maybe I need to sow before I try to reap. In our one on one-on-one relationships? When we ask our friends to come with us to church, do you have any idea how frightening that is for many people? Do you remember what it was like to be the new kid in school?

That is what it’s like to go to a new church. Who knows what they’re doing down there? They might pass out snakes. I mean, you just don’t know. And so we invite somebody to come to church. Do they do they trust us? Do we have a relationship with them where they know it’s going to be okay? And I’m going to sit with them and I’m going to meet them at the door, and I’m going to make sure that they’re comfortable and that strange and scary things don’t happen to them. See, that’s the kind of sowing that we can do as everyday discipleships, building deeper relationships so that when I ask somebody, hey, you want to come to church with me sometime? You want to listen to the sermon, CD?

Hey, would you read the Bible with me sometime? When I’m doing those sorts of things, there’s enough trust there that those events can actually happen. I need to sow before I try to read. That’s what bothers me so much about Brother Big Personal Worker and his crazy conversion stories. You know, there I was in Walmart, and I was standing in line and I read Acts 238 to this guy, and he said, Hey, can we go to the kitty pool department and will you baptize me? These stories are incredible. Then what they seem to say is that there’s some magic evangelism method that just instantly converts people. Jesus says that’s not how it works. If Brother Big Personal Worker gets to reap in that incredible fashion, it’s because somewhere at some time there was sowing.

Somebody planted the word of God, and I can be, and you can be that somebody. The problem is sometimes we don’t want to sow. What we want to do is we want to reap. Because where’s the glory? Where’s the excitement? What involves our ego? The reaping. We’re like fishermen. You know, when we get somebody and they’re baptized, then we stand around and say, look at me. Look at what I did. I’m just about the best fishermen that you ever did see, don’t you know? Look at me. Really? How have we turned evangelism? The opportunity to point people to Jesus into an excuse to point to ourselves. God forbid that this would become some exercise in self-glorification. Paul talks about glorying in the cross. What happened to that when we’re just all excited about how many scouts can I nail up to the Baptistry?

2. Sowing Is the Really Vital Work

How many conversions have I had? Can I tell my big conversion story? May the Lord defeat all of such foolishness and carnality. We need to be content to sow when it is time to sow. In fact, Jesus actually says the truth of the matter is the sowing thing, that’s the really vital work. That’s the work that really matters. It’s verse 38 where Jesus says in John 4, turn back there, John 4.38. Jesus says, There, I have sent you to reap.

There’s been some sowing going on here, boys, and now you get to take advantage of that. You get to do the reaping because of what other people did. Do you? Do you know anything about migrant workers? In our country, we still have migrant workers. These are people, usually of very low job skills and low education. Many times in the country illegally. And they harvest. They harvest for a living and they move to where the harvest is. So they’ll start in the north, in the northwest, harvesting apples in Washington. And then as the harvest time comes, they sweep across the country into Iowa and Nebraska to harvest up watermelons and strawberries. And then as the season comes along, maybe into the Valley of Texas for citrus, or on to Georgia for peaches, or down into Florida for oranges and grapefruits.

It’s very hard work. Don’t mean to say anything bad about migrant workers at all. Invariably, when I use this illustration, somebody comes out and says, My grandmother was a migrant worker. And your grandmother worked hard if she was a migrant worker. But the reason people of low job skills and low education can do that is because harvesting isn’t that hard to do in a complex technical kind of way. Here’s what a ripe apple looks like. When you see one of these, pull it off the tree, put it in your bag. Here’s what a right orange looks like. When you see one of these, put it in your bag. Here’s what ripe strawberries look like. When you see these, put them in your bag. It’s not that complex, is it?

Let me ask you this. What’s the best fertilizer to use in a grapefruit orchard? How close can you plant orange trees together to get a maximum yield per acre? When should you start strawberries so that they’ll ripen at the right time? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. But the farmer has to know the answer to all of those questions. All of the difficulties that go with sowing, he’s got to know. When he knows all of that and sows correctly, then you can put a sign out by the highway, strawberries, you pick a dollar a quart, and a city boy like me can show up and harvest because reaping isn’t that difficult, not that technically complex. Didn’t say it wasn’t hard. Did you ever pick cotton?

It can’t be hard, but it’s not that complicated. And in the very same way, evangelism is a process. And you want to know what the tough part of the process is? It’s the front end of that thing. The sowing part. When the sowing’s been done and been done right, the reaping end of things is not hard at all. We get families at West Side and they invite their friends and they build relationships with their friends so that their friends will trust them and take them up on that invitation to listen to a sermon CD or to come to a gospel meeting and they build relationships and they ask and they touch lives and they ask some more and they pray some more. And people come and they study together and they read with them and they talk with them and they hear the gospel proclaim.

And then finally one night, one of them comes to me and says, You know, my friend who’s been visiting the last six weeks, and I say, Yeah. Well, he kind of wants to talk to you a little bit. I think he wants to become a Christian. And I talk with that guy in my office for a little while, and sure enough, in a minute, we are in the Baptist tree, and we are reaping. And it is awesome. It is so great. And it’s so great because of the work of sowing. The hard work of sowing that was done. With some of the with some of the practical tools for evangelism that we have today, I’m telling you, we could put a pair of glasses on a bear, and I think the guy can teach the gospel.

It’s just not that difficult on the end if somebody will build the relationships and sow the word of God. Isn’t that what Jesus talks about in the parable of the sower? Look over in Matthew 13. When the word is sown, look at all the things that can go wrong. Look at all the things that can destroy the sea. This is the work of sowing portrayed for us here in this parable because Jesus is helping us see that to sow the word requires so much. In Matthew the 13th chapter and in verse 3, he told them many things in parables. He said that a sower went out to sow. And he sowed, and some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. And other seeds fell on the rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil.

But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. And another seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Another seed fell on the good soil. And produced grain a hundredfold and sixty and some thirty. You see all the work that sowing requires. For example, sowing requires the hard work of cultivating. That’s getting rocks and stuff that’ll destroy the plant out of the ground. That’s really hard to do. There are a lot of people walking around with a lot of prejudices and a lot of hard hearts and a lot of bad attitudes. You ever meet those people? People have bad attitudes about the church of Christ. You ever meet folks like that? My buddy and I were going quail hunting one morning.

We had daily the guy’s land. So we show up, we’re ready to go, we’ve got dogs, we got shotguns, we’re ready to rock and roll. We knock on this guy’s door at seven o’clock in the morning, he opens the door. He’s drinking a beer. It’s seven. The first thing he says is, all right, I’m going to show you where to hunt. Get in my truck. Now he’s driving. That’s a win. So we’re driving along. And he says, How do you two know each other? And my buddy says, we go to church together. That was good, Stu. Glad you brought that up. He says, Really, where do you go to church? Stu says, We go to the West Side Church of Christ. He says, Church of Christ.

My Aunt Bertha was church of Christ. She was meaner than a Gratchy rattlesnake. She’s always telling everybody that they’re going to hell. She was the worst woman I ever met. Then he looks right at me and he says, What do you do for a living?

I said, I’m a moral and ethics consultant. No. I said, I preach where this knucklehead goes to church. I preach for the West Side Church of Christ. And I’m sorry you’re inactive that way. Somebody’s going to help that guy ever come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. There’s going to have to be a lot of cultivation going on. There’s a lot of rocks and bad feelings and wrong attitudes. Going to have to be rooted out of that man’s life. Thorns and thistles and weeds that are choking any chance that the word of God would have. That’s hard work. That’s work you can do as an everyday disciple. When you model Christianity for what it ought to be and what it is, when you speak well of the church of the Lord, when you praise, hey, what’d you do this weekend?

I did this. What’d you do this weekend? I was a church Sunday, man. Tony had a great lesson. So great to go to church. You can change people’s lives by cultivating their hearts. And then what about the work of planning? Jesus talks about the sower sowing here. Somebody’s got to plant the word of God. And by that I’m talking about that wonderful ability to introduce spiritual ideas into the conversation without it being awkward and strained and weird. Just naturally flow that into the conversation. I’m not talking about pounding people and beating on them with the Bible. Gently directing them towards Jesus. Watch how good Jesus that is. When you’re reading in the Gospels, Jesus is just a master of whatever the conversation is, whatever we’re talking about.

In a minute we’re talking about the kingdom of God. He’s just always gently flowing things in that direction. I’ll give you a good tip on that. Look over in Acts 8. Here’s a guy who did a great job with that. In Acts chapter 8 and verse 30. In Acts chapter 8 and verse 30, Philip is standing on the side of the road, and along comes a guy in a chariot reading the Bible. Well, that seems like a good thing. And so Acts 8 and verse 30, the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. And Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet. And he asked, Do you understand what you are reading? Oh, I love that. Asking questions. And then waiting and listening.

I am firmly convinced that in most of my evangelistic efforts, I’m talking way too much and listening way too little. Where are you? What do you believe? Why do you believe that? What do you think about the Bible? You don’t go to church? Why don’t you go to church? Those kinds of questions open people up so that we have an opportunity to sow. That’s what Philip wants to do. Certainly looks like a great opportunity. God’s got a Bible. But he needs to see what’s happening in his heart. Is the ground right here? How much can I sow? And where can I sow? And then, of course, part of sowing is always nurturing the seed. We talk about somebody having a green thumb. We say, she can grow anything.

That’s really not true. Really not. All good gardeners do, good farmers do, is they just provide the maximum environment so that the seed will flourish and grow. And as we’re sowing, as we’re cultivating and sowing and sowing and cultivating, there’s going to be questions. Well, what about this? Well, I’ve always heard this. Who’s going to carefully make sure that fledgling seed can take hold and roots can begin to go down? Who’s going to answer those questions and nurture that budding thing? That’s such hard work. All of that requires so much care and prayer and wisdom and discernment. So much easier to get the sickle out, isn’t it? I’m reaping. But the farmer can’t go out one day four days after he sowed and said, You know what?

3. God Rewards the Sowers and the Reapers

I’m feeling the reek today. I’m just going to harvest. You can’t do that. And I’ll give you this for free. The farmer can’t lean over and yell at the plants. Grow faster. Doesn’t work that way, does it? The farmer waits, patiently cultivating, patiently sowing, patiently nurturing. What does Jesus say about that again in John 4 in verse 37? Jesus says there, for the saying holds true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap for that which you didn’t labor. Others have labored, you enter into their labor. That’s what it’s about. We want to teach people. And if we never do that sowing work, isn’t it true? There’s never going to be a harvest for anybody. Maybe the key truth that we need to grab onto in all of this is that God’s going to reward the sowers and the reapers bone.

That’s verse 36. Jesus says in verse 36, already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. See, verse 36 is a hard verse for us to believe because it goes exactly counter to how our society runs things. Our world runs things based on the star system. And we pay the stars. The CEO, who’s at the top of the corporate pyramid, the huge office, the private jet, he gets all the money, not the worker bees on the factory floor who are churning the things out. What about in athletics? In athletics, who gets the money? The quarterback gets the money. Maybe the running back gets the money. What about the big guys in the line who do the black?

We don’t even know their names. It’s changing a little bit. Left guards are getting paid better these days. But in the main, in the main, we don’t know those guys. It doesn’t make any difference the fact that no quarterback’s any good when he’s laying on the ground because a 400 pound defensive man has slammed him into the turf. If you don’t have a good line, you got nothing. But we care about stars. How’s that work in the church? You know how that works in the church. There aren’t a lot of fringe benefits to preaching, but one of the great perks is that I do get to do most of the baptizing. And I’ll tell you this it is incredible. It is amazing to be in the water with someone and to see them born again.

The water is pouring off of them. And they smile a smile that reaches from here to heaven. And they gas that first breath, and you hug them and say, Congratulations, you are a Christian. It is incredible. I love it. But one of the downsides to that is what that means in many people’s eyes is that the preacher is the star. He’s really the only one who’s doing any evangelistic work around here. He’s really the only one that counts. He’s the big man. He does the baptizing, and so we all focus on him and little old me, I’m probably not worth anything in the kingdom of God. No. Did you not hear what Jesus said? Jesus says, verse 36, the sower and the reaper will rejoice together.

God doesn’t have a star system. And God knows that reaping is very cool, but God knows that sowing is very necessary. And so in God’s economy, while everybody else is recognizing and applied the stars, God knows how it all worked. And the chain of events necessary to bring someone to him. And God rewards all of those people, the sowers and the reapers. It has been said that in heaven, no reaper will ever celebrate alone. Every celebration will be a team effort. Everyone, including unsung heroes, who maybe didn’t even know they made a contribution, all will rejoice together. If there’s any star system in the kingdom of God, who is the star? Jesus is the star. He’s the one that made it all possible. We’ll rejoice with Jesus.

But the truth of the matter is we don’t really believe that. We nod up and down, oh, yeah. That’s right. But we don’t believe it. And I know we don’t believe it. Because people will come and they’ll talk with me. I had this spiritual conversation. I talked to my boss about the gospel, and we talked a long time about why I believe in God and evidences for the Bible. We had about an hour-long conversation, but it didn’t do any good. Well, what do you mean? No. He didn’t obey the gospel. Do you hear it? You hear it? Do you hear it? Didn’t reap. So it didn’t matter. Because only if I reap does it count. I mean, will your sheaves be many?

You better be reaping, brother. That’s what matters. If you don’t get them wet in the Baptist tree, ha, nothing for you. We nod our head and act like we say, think otherwise, but I know better. Because I know how preachers talk when we get around. You ever seen the preacher standing before you’re talking? You know what they’re saying? This is how that conversation goes. How’s the work going over at Main Street? Oh, it’s going great. We baptized 22 this year. Oh. Well, how’s the work going where you are? Well, over here at Ash Street, we’ve baptized 25. Oh. See it? See it? We’re Americans. We want a scoreboard. We want visible results. We act like only reaping matters. I was part of a conversation that went exactly like that.

And when one preacher had one up the other preacher, the first preacher said, how many of those baptisms were members’ kids. I guess those only count for half.

Is that where we are? A scoreboard mentality? Hey, we’ll just run an ad. Then everybody who gets dipped here will give them $50. We’re going to dip a lot of people around here. Is that what we want? That is not what we want. We want to teach people about Jesus Christ. We want to call their hearts to repentance. We want to call them to the kingdom of God. In that work, sowing is essential. Sowing is absolutely necessary. And God gives the credit to everyone who sows. We must believe that. Because until we do believe that, we engage in all kinds of high pressure manipulation and all sorts of forced tactics. Why? Because we believe that if there’s not a baptism, it didn’t count. So we squeeze people and we push people.

Now we get involved in questionable kinds of tactics. Why? We want to stir the water. And we end up with a church full of unconverted, dipped people. Because we’ve lost sight of what evangelism is all about. Evangelism is not about baptizing people. Evangelism is about teaching people, sowing the word of God. As my good friend Dan Chipley used to say, we are seed planters. We are not soil inspectors. And he said that because he knew that as long as we’re in the visible results game, what happens? The preacher gets up and talks about evangelism, and we mentally go down our list of friends. What about this person? Oh, God, never going to be baptized. He’s on his third one. What about this person? Oh, goodness, no.

I mean, his business practices, the things that he has to do to stay afloat, he’s cheating and lying all the time to the IRS. He’s never obeying the gospel. What about he drinks like a fish? We just go down our list. Is this person going to be baptized? Is this person going to be baptized this person? No. Okay, I’m done. Because we think it’s all about visible results. It’s not about visible results. It’s about our obligation, our privilege to tell people about Jesus. And that’s all I have to do. And when I do that, I have pleased the Lord. Do we understand that? That if I point someone to Jesus, I’ve been faithful to the Lord. And the Lord is pleasing with me.

4. Plant the Seed and Let God Give the Growth

And he doesn’t get more pleased. I don’t get more brownie points, even if they are baptized. I just did what I’m called to do. Plant the seed. Paul talks about that. You know that? 1 Corinthians 3? In 1 Corinthians 3, I deem this to be the most important passage on evangelism in the entire New Testament. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, I’m reading there in verse 6. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and in verse 6. In 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 6, there, Paul says, I planted and Apollos watered. But God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one. And each will receive his wages according to his labor.

See? One of the huge keys to everyday evangelism is to take the pressure off ourselves. Aren’t you glad that you don’t have to baptize people? I wouldn’t know how to do that. Baptism has to come from within. I can’t make people obey the gospel, can you? God doesn’t force people to obey the gospel. How would you or I do it? We’re not called to do that at all. We’re called to do what? We’re called to plant and water and then let God give the growth. One fellow said, Judge each day not by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. Amen. Amen. What I need to do is I just need to try to touch people’s lives for Jesus. I need to try to build friendships like we’ve talked about all night.

So that I have a platform of trust that I can stand on to invite somebody to read the Bible with me in the daily Bible reading program, or to read this tract, or to listen to this sermon, CD, or yes, even come to church. I need to think of different ways beyond just that standard invitation. Would you come to church with me? We need to have more things that we ask people to do. Here’s a daily Bible reading chapter. Would you read that? Several years ago at Westside. One of our dear sisters was going by our information table, and she had like 30 daily Bible reading schedules in her hand. I was, Cindy, I mean, how many of those do you need? One to get lost in the back of the car, one in your Bible, maybe one in your desk.

You’ve got like 30. She said, Oh, I hand these out to people at work and ask them if they want to read the Bible with me. Just sewing. Just sowing. See, what we want at the end of that story is, and then there was this amazing conversion that this horrible atheistic person found a Bible reading schedule in the trash. And I don’t have an amazing conversion story from Cindy’s Bible reading schedules. I don’t need one. What I have is the story of a sister who’s faithfully doing what God wants her to do every day. You just find small ways to point people to Jesus.

It’s not hard at all. As soon as we check our egos at the door, as soon as we realize God will give the growth. Not me. When you have the opportunity to preach for a large congregation like Westside, where I am in Irving. People ask all the time about evangelism and what we’re doing in evangelism. It’s almost like the fisherman, you know. You see the guy over there, and he’s reeling them in, and you yell, What are you catching them on? And then he says, Shark truth, willy worms, and we start digging in our tackle box. People want to know, what are we doing? Well, we actually right now don’t have any kind of organized evangelism thing. And it’s not because organized evangelism things are wrong or bad.

They can be very helpful. But they do have a tendency to be outcome based in how we judge them. Does it work? What does that mean? Did we baptize anybody? Nobody asks, did we teach a lot of people? Did we get a plant a lot of seed? No, what we want to know is, did it work? Did it spin the numbers? And sometimes that kind of program does teach people that evangelism is a thing that I do on Thursday night when we have evangelism night. Then I go do evangelism. That’s not right. In the New Testament, you don’t do evangelism. In the New Testament, everyday disciples are evangelism. You don’t do it. It’s who you are. It’s not a thing that you’re going to get out on Thursday night now and become something or act in some way or do some activity.

Every day, all the time, we’re praying, we’re looking, we’re searching. How could I in some way begin that process of pointing someone to Jesus? What little touch could I employ here that would help this person be a little bit closer to the Lord? How can I be faithful? To God’s commission to sow his word. Because if I do that, even if nobody’s ever baptized, God will reward me for being a faithful sower. Amen. Amen. I do think in some ways that evangelism is very difficult. But it’s not as hard as walking on water. And it’s not as hard as jumping over the moon. Those things are impossible. It is not impossible to plant the word of God. To sow a little, to build a relationship so you can sow a little more.

Maybe Brother Big Personal Worker wouldn’t think having a friend over to eat barbecue one night is evangelistic. But it could be, couldn’t you? Oh yes. Oh, yes. Maybe somebody wouldn’t think going fishing with somebody’s very evangelistic. Oh, it could be. Building that relationship. Maybe when the water gets still a little bit, talking a little bit about the things of the Lord, doing a little sowing. Remember, it’s not about technique. Jesus didn’t technique people. He never talked to any two people in exactly the same way. There’s no script, there’s no magic bullet, there’s no gimmick. There’s just you being who you are, who God made you to be. With the unique talents and personality and combination of gifts of who you are. There’s you being you for Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

That’s how everyday disciples do evangelism every day. Would you pray with me, please? Almighty God and Father in heaven, we are so thankful, Father, that you have not given us a responsibility we could not fulfill. We rejoice that you are in charge of giving the growth. For you know exactly how to do that, and we don’t. Forgive us, Father, when we mess it up. When we climb into the middle of everything with our ego, try to make ourselves look good, fail to understand the process you have ordained. Bless us, Father, and open our eyes to opportunities to sow. Yes. When the time is right, help us see when to reap. Give us chances, Father, to sow your word, for we know it will not return to you empty.

In Christ we pray. And amen. Well, that was the longest seven minutes of your life, wasn’t it?

I thoroughly enjoyed being with you. Listen to me very carefully. This is my last invitation, and in some ways it is very important you understand what I’m going to say. If you’re here tonight and you’re not a Christian, we would love for you to become a Christian. We really didn’t talk about that a whole lot this evening. You’ve got a pretty good glimpse of what it’s like to live as a Christian. If we could help you be a Christian, if you don’t understand about Jesus, we want to do that, grab me, grab Tony, grab an elder. We’ll talk a few more about that. If you know, you just need to do. We’re going to sing a song in a minute, and you can sure do, and we would love.

But here’s the invitation. If you’re here tonight, you were at one time baptized. You are not living as a Christian should. You need to listen to me right now. You are killing it. You are killing our efforts in evangelism. What’s the number one thing people say when somebody starts up a spiritual problem? Oh, church, full of hypocrites. You’re one of them. You’re part of the problem. And you know that, and the Lord knows that, and that has to stop. If you’re not serving God like you ought to be serving God, not only are you going to be lost, you’re going to take a bunch of people with you. That is inexcusable, and it must come to an end. This is your invitation. You need, you must step forward bravely in front of your brothers and sisters in Christ and say, I have done a very poor job of representing the Decor Prairie Church.

I have done a very poor job of representing Jesus Christ. I am so terribly sorry for that. And with God’s grace and your help, I want to do better. So tomorrow, when somebody says, hey, want to go to church to meet? Somebody says, Oh, Decker Prayer Church Christ, I know so-and-so damn next. up. He stood up last night and said, That was wrong. He asked for forgiveness. He’s trying to do right, and you need to do right as well. One of the huge barriers in evangelism. It’s not the militant atheists and all the books that they write. It’s not Charles Darwin in evolution. One of the biggest barriers in evangelism is Christians who don’t live like Christians. And it’s easy to sit here and say, oh, that’s right.

Preach on about that reaping and sowing. We’d love to do that. If you’d get out of the way. So if you’re not living right, this is it. You need to turn that around. If that’s of public nature, you need to stand before your brethren and before the Lord. Could we help you do that? As I said, if you’re not a Christian, we’d love to baptize you. But specifically and primarily, I am looking now to those of you who know you’re hurting the cause of Christ before God. You must stop it. Could we help you? Come to the front while we stand, while we sing.