Directives for 2021 (part 6)
February 28, 2021
Directives for 2021 (part 6)
Reach Out to Others
2.28.2021
1. You can weather any storm or test when you align your thoughts, values and lifestyle with God and His Word.
Focus on the Kingdom of God this year.
2. This year, you are going to have to choose whether to stay home, or come and help us promote the kingdom of God and train new Christ followers.
Turn off the news – turn on the word – and be willing to be challenged for what you believe…
Are you going to go with what the media says, or with what God says?
Who are you choosing to believe?
3. Get ready for a fresh move of the Holy Spirit worldwide!
There is coming, and we are now entering into, a great moving of the Holy Spirit. It will be unprecedented in our time.
4. Prepare for the persecution that the Presence of God brings.
Luke 6:26 (NKJV)
Woe to you when all men speak well of you, For so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Matthew 10:34 (NLT)
Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.
5. The Holy Spirit manifests in unity, not in isolation.
Unity is NOT uniformity!
Loving God and loving others – without compromising what you believe!
Spirit of antiChrist is here – to misinform and conform you to a pattern.
6. REACH OUT TO OTHERS – Don’t hold back and lock down
Pre Corona, 53% of our community will not go to our church. They are not Christ-followers.
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.
In this unusual time just before Jesus returns, God wants us to be passionate about reaching the people who don’t know Him.
2 Peter 3:3-9 (TPT)
Above all, you must understand that in the last days mockers will multiply, chasing after their evil desires. 4 They will say, “So what about this promise of his coming? Our ancestors are dead and buried, yet everything is still the same as it was since from the beginning of time until now.” 5 But they conveniently overlook that from the beginning, the heavens and earth were created by God’s word. He spoke and the dry ground separated from the waters. 6 Then long afterward he destroyed the world with a tremendous flood by those very waters. 7 And now, by the same powerful word, the heavens and the earth are reserved for fire, being kept for judgment day, when all the ungodly will perish. 8 So, dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape your notice: a single day counts like a thousand years to the Lord Yahweh, and a thousand years counts as one day. 9 This means that, contrary to man’s perspective, the Lord is not late with his promise to return, as some measure lateness. But rather, his “delay” simply reveals his loving patience toward you, because he does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance.
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 who don’t know Jesus?
Do I actively pray and ask for opportunities to be a witness for Jesus every day?
Here are five 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 Christ-followers.
Matthew 28:18-20 (NLT)
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 Christian, 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…
In our Growth Track, we have a Spiritual Gifts test that shows your strengths. Let God use you the way He created you, with your personality and way of relating to people.
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 Dream 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 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.
5. We have cards in the lobby that will make it so much easier to share your faith.
Action Points:
- Pick up cards to give out this week.
- Ask God to direct you to the individuals to whom you will give them.
- Make yourself available every day to share Jesus with people.