Greg Laurie - Evangelism, Jesus Style

Before we start with this message, which I'm calling evangelism Jesus style, and our text is John chapter 4, so you might start making your way over there. But before we start, I'd like to have a word of 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 afraid 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, and 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, I 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?" 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, and 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, low, high, everywhere in between. So we've been commanded to do this. Now, Mark's version of the same statement is, "Go and preach the gospel." So who's called 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. Now you're saying, "Now, Greg, 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?

I heard about a Sunday 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 commission is?" A little girl sitting in the front row raised her hand. The teacher called on her. "What's the sin of commission, honey?" She said, "The sin of commission is when we do what we should not do." The 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 the sin of omission?" He said, "The sin of omission is those are the sins you want to do but you haven't gotten around to them yet." Uh, no. Here it is: A sin of commission 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 a 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 911. But if I were to continue walking without any concern for those people, well, 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 indifference, 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 neighborhood; 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 FRANELM. Franelm. You saying, "You mean only evangelize people named Friend?" No, it's an acronym. F stands for friends; R stands for relatives; A stands for associates; N stands for neighbors; evangelism—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 might have just rolled the heavens back and poked 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, and His has wisdom, to reach people through people. Romans 10:14 says, "How will they hear unless someone tells them?" And then over in 1 Corinthians 1:21, it says, "In the wisdom of God, God was pleased to the foolishness of preaching to save those that believe." The foolishness of preaching—that doesn't say foolish preaching, by the way—but the foolishness of the preached thing. And what is the preached thing? It's the gospel. That's how we are to do it.

Fourth 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 here 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, I walked in, and um, by the way, when guys go to restrooms, we always go solo. 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 in restrooms and talk. Our objective is to get in and out as quickly as possible. We're even kind of embarrassed we're in there. So I go and I take a seat—don't get a visual, just don't—I just there, it stop. And I, I hear someone clear their throat in the stall next to me. Like, yeah, whatever. I, I don't talk to people; I'm, I'm, I don't even want to acknowledge I'm there. And then I'm sitting there, and this voice says, "Hi." So in this masculine as a tone as, "Hi, kid." My, I said, "Hi." 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. "Well, someone's supposed to meet you here." Yeah. He was going to bring something to me. Oh, now I'm curious. What was it going to bring? He said, "Some drugs." Oh. 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 in a restroom? Will the Holy Spirit actually be present in this weird place and convict a human heart? Or 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, "A relationship with God through Jesus Christ." He says, "Oh, I already tried that." I said, "Really?" He 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 pastor 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 in a recommitment to Christ. So be on duty at all times. You never know when the Lord's going to all 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 I'm 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 ch. 4. The reason I called it Jesus style is 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, am I—last trip here I discovered this place called Babe's. 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. Uh, 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? There's someone from Hawaii? Are you guys from Hawaii? How's it, bra? All right. You know the kind, bra? You know, I'm speaking to him in pigeon 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 objective 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 the 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 a 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 and divorced, 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 hottest 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 in 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 we're 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 4, starting at verse 3: "He left Judea and departed to 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 sixth 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; they're on the screen as well. I believe uh, that will help you in sharing your faith. Number one: Effective evangelism, more 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, all right? So I've watched Care Bear cartoons, and there are these little bears in different colors, and in their hearts rainbows come out, and they'll say things like, "We care a lot. We care a lot." Well, this sounds like something a Care Bear would say, and on this point it's theologically correct. Listen, all the training in evangelism, all the memorization of Bible verses, all the preparation and apologetics isn't going to do you one bit of good if you don't care about lost people. And here's my question: Do you? You say, "Well, I do." Okay, let me ask you a follow-up question then: When's the last time you engaged someone in a conversation about Jesus Christ? [Music] 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 there was a burned-out, immoral woman who was going to come to a well at 12:00 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, 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 as 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, were his enemy. They were wicked and did horrible things 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 to him." Nonah. 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. No, there's no Nona. It was a slip. Anyway, so Jonah, when Jonah goes to Nineveh, he's Nonah. That's how it works. Okay, 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 them, and 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 in the belly of the beast, he came to his senses and repented, and the fish cruised right up to the shore of Nineveh and barfed him out right there, and he went and preached, and 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. Tact. TT. 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, could have said, "Hey, you immoral 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? "Hey, excuse me, can I have a drink of water?" He, 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 beggar 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 the problem: A lot of times we end the conversation before it starts because we bombard people with what I like to call Christian-ease. Christian-ease 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. We'll walk up to him and say, "Excuse me, heathen, can I talk to you for a moment? Um, 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 be in somebody else's body. They, they 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 dialogued with this woman. Now, when I stand here behind this podium, it's a monologue, basically, uh, but when I talk 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 than it is to engage a total stranger in conversation. And that is why I now have a pulpit on wheels. I take it 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 Jes? No, I don't do that. I'm just kidding. But so, but 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 intact. I was walking down the street once, and there was a guy standing there with a big sign, and painted in bold black letters that 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 all going to hell! You're going to hell now! You're going to burn!" He almost seemed happy about it. So I walked up to this guy, and he's up on a step, kind of yelling at everyone, yelling over my head. I said, "Excuse me." He said, "You're all going to--you're going to burn!" "Pardon me for a moment," I said. "You're all going to go--you're going to just--you're going to be judged." "Excuse me," 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 that if a person doesn't believe in Jesus, so 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! Hallelujah!" 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. But 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: If you drink of this well, you'll thirst again. And in a 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 well 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 in the chapter before this, the religious leader; he dealt 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 a 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. And no matter what we do, we cannot bridge that gap on our own. But God loved us so much that 2,000 years ago he sent his Son Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, to be born in that manger in Bethlehem and 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 if we'll 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, uh, and that is my time just ended. I, it 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 long today, uh. There's a lot more I could say; a lot of it's in my book. But I just wanted to say this--no, 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. Let'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, I'm with you even to the end of the age. I'll give you strength; I'll give you the power; I'll give you 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 in evangelism, use you to bring other people to him, pray this after me. But let me warn you, if you pray it, 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. 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."