It’s Easy to Share Your Faith!
February 8, 2023
It’s Easy to Share Your Faith!
2.8.2023
Introduction
53% of our community will not go to our church. They are not followers of Jesus.
We now live in a post-Christian culture!
Over the last number of years, the church as a whole has lost the spirit of evangelism.
For some, church has become a place to go and listen with no commitment to do anything, instead of a place to receive so I can grow and be a part of winning my world to Jesus.
I want to move me and all of us into a new era of being passionate about what God is passionate about – the 53%
What is God’s greatest desire? What does He long for more than anything?
Listen to these passages and perhaps we can get an idea:
John 3:16-17 (NLT)
For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
Parable of the lost sheep
Matthew 18:12-14 (NLT)
If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! 14 In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish.
Luke 15:1-7 (NLT)
Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! 3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!
John Maxwell
God Loves people I don’t know.
God loves people I don’t like!
Questions
Am I passionate about what God is passionate about?
What do I need to change to open myself up to befriend people that don’t know Jesus?
Do I actively pray and ask for opportunities to be a witness for Jesus every day?
Here are four things we all can do :
Remember, 53% of people will not come to church. We must take the message to them!
1. Accept your job description from Jesus to help the unchurched become followers of Jesus.
Matthew 28:18-20
Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
2 Corinthians 5:18-20 (NLT)
And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
Before I became a follower of Jesus, a guy came to where I worked and told me that God was not mad at me because of my sin. And he showed me this verse later…
2. Become friends with people God loves.
Remember that He loves people you don’t know.
He loves people you don’t like.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (MSG)
Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, non religious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
1st saved – people I worked with…
Bible School – co-worker in Tulsa
* Small Groups – Invite your unchurched friends to come with you!
3. Ask God for opportunities to be involved in someone’s salvation every day.
1 Corinthians 3:6-8 (NLT)
I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. 7 It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work.
The statistics say that every person who becomes a believer in Christ in our culture has at least 7 personal touches from different believers before he or she ever becomes interested in Jesus.
One plants – sometimes you share with those who are not open just yet.
One waters – sometimes you share with a person who has heard about Jesus before.
God gives the increase – sometimes the person is ready to pray with you to receive Jesus.
* Be involved in our Victory Serve Team! You never know the influence your life has on someone else.
*Don’t wait until your life is totally right before you allow God to use you! If you struggle in some area of life – you’re just like everyone else. Help someone else and watch God help you! (Job 42:10)
4. Prepare yourself to share Jesus with people.
1 Peter 3:15 (MSG)
Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.
1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
1 John 1:3 (NLT)
We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
*One of the teachers in my 1st Bible School in 1977 gave us some homework one day…to put our testimony of what Jesus had done for us into one paragraph…place it on a 3×5 card…
Bruce McDonald:
Make a friend.
Be a friend.
Share Jesus when God opens the opportunity.
Action Points:
1. Pick up several cards to give out this week.
2. Ask God to direct you to the individuals to whom you will give them.
3. Make yourself available everyday to share Jesus with people.