The Reluctant Evangelist | Sunday Message

Hey there, thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie encouraging you, if you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. Let's pray. And now, Lord, we want to sing of the goodness of God and we want to speak of the goodness of God. Your word says it's the goodness of God that brings us to repentance.

And we think about our crusade only weeks away at Angel Stadium, 35 years. And we pray for an outpouring of your Holy Spirit and that you would use us to reach people with the gospel so they can have their lives transformed by Jesus Christ.

So we commit this all to you and this message to you now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You can all be seated. I want you to grab your Bible and turn to the book of Jonah, one of my favorite books in the Bible.

And we're starting a brand new series, and the title of it is. The reluctant evangelist. I heard a story about a man who was driving his car with two penguins in the back seat. He was pulled over by a police officer, and the officer said, Sir. The penguin is an endangered species.

You can't drive them around in your car. Take them to the zoo immediately. And he let the guy go. The next day, the officer sees the same man driving around with the penguins, but this time they were wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses. The officer said, I thought I told you to take those penguins to the zoo.

The guy said, I did, and now we're going to the beach. I think he kind of missed the point. And I think sometimes in the church we can miss the point as well: the point of the Great Commission. And what is the Great Commission? It's given to us in Mark 16 and Matthew 28.

And it tells us to go into all the world and preach the gospel and to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. We're all called to do that. You know, I think sometimes some churches think church growth is evangelism. Church growth can be evangelism.

A church can grow evangelistically, but sometimes when a church grows, maybe they're a new church that started, some people will leave another church and go over there, so it's church transfer growth. And by the way, I'll meet people from time to time that will come up to me and say, we used to go to this other church, but now we come to your church and we like your church better. And here's what we don't like about our old church, and they'll go on and on. And I'm tempted to just look at my watch and ask myself the question, how long is it going to be until you say the same things about this church? Because some people just hop from church to church, and a church thinks they're growing.

But the best kind of growth in a church is not people coming from other churches. The best kind of growth is people coming to Christ in the church. And that has always been the way we've grown. It's always been the thing we have Hope for actually, because in Acts chapter 2, verses 42 to 47, you read about the early church and all that they did. And it concludes with these words: And the Lord added to the church daily those that were being saved.

New converts are the lifeblood of the church. As I've said before, the church has a choice. We can evangelize or we can fossilize.

Well, anyway, we all have the memo. We know we're supposed to proclaim the gospel, but if we're honest, a lot of us don't do it. At best, we're reluctant evangelists. I read that 95% of all Christians have never led another person to Christ. I don't think it's true of this church.

I'll take a poll just to see. How many of you have led a person to Christ? And let me explain what that means. It means that you played a role in someone else coming to Jesus. Maybe you brought them to church and they responded to the gospel.

Maybe you brought them to a crusade or you personally shared the gospel with them, but you played a role in them coming to Christ. How many of you, with that definition, have led someone to Christ? Raise your hand.

Well done, you guys. Come on.

So you're not in that category, so I'm thankful for that. But uh But many have never shared their faith with others. 59% of all Christians say they seldom or never share their faith with others. And what's ironic about this is, we'll tell our friends about some taco truck. Or some series on Netflix, or a new app we just discovered, but we won't say a word about Jesus, the one who has changed our lives.

So why? Why don't we share the gospel more?

Well, here's some reasons. And they could also be defined as excuses. One is, well, The fear of rejection. You know, if I initiate a conversation, they might just tell me to go away or be angry with me or label me as intolerant and narrow-minded, and I don't want that to happen.

Well, that could happen. But in many cases, actually, it doesn't happen. And you'll find people are very open to what you may have to say. Another might say, well, I just don't have enough knowledge of scripture. I'm sorry.

Excuse me, you're afraid someone's going to ask you a question you don't have the answer to, and that may happen. In fact, it happened to me very early in my Christian life. I was out talking to people about the Lord, and I was sharing the gospel with someone I met, and some other person, eavesdropping, interrupted our conversation and peppered me with some hard questions, which I didn't have the answer to. And I walked away a bit embarrassed and even ashamed. And I determined I needed to start studying the Bible.

I was only a believer for a few weeks at that point. I needed to start studying the Bible and knowing the answers. The Bible says, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And then over in 1 Peter 3:15, it says, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But listen to this.

Do this with gentleness and respect. Do it with gentleness and respect.

Sometimes we can come off like know-it-alls.

Sometimes we can come off holier than thou.

Sometimes we can be overly argumentative. And that is not what we're supposed to do. The objective is not to win the argument, it's to win the soul. The goal is to build a bridge, not burn a bridge.

So be friendly, be humble, be loving. And be clear, and maybe you won't have the answer to the question. And it's okay to say you don't have the answer. You might say, that's a great question. I actually don't know the answer.

But let me get back to you on that. That's all right. But here's what I suggest: I think you know more than you think you know. And I think when you put yourself in this situation to share the gospel, you'll find that the Holy Spirit will help you. Jesus said, Don't worry when you're brought before the leaders, the Holy Spirit will give you those words.

And I know you probably experienced this.

Someone asked you a question and you don't even know what the answer is. And all of a sudden, you're giving them an answer that's so good, you want to take notes on yourself. Yeah. But that's not going to happen if you don't put yourself in this situation and take a step of faith and take a risk and engage someone in a gospel conversation. Maybe another reason or excuse as to why we don't share the gospel is we assume everybody knows and they've already made a decision.

That's just not true. I was just back in Europe. I spoke at a Congress, an event for evangelists, and there were evangelists from all over Europe. And I was shocked to discover that only 2% Of Europe identifies as evangelical Christians. Two percent.

Can you believe that? 98% of the people of Europe Do not identify as Christians, and that could be the future of America if we follow in their footsteps. That's why we need to take advantage of the liberty and the freedom we have in this country and boldly proclaim the gospel wherever we can, right? Uh I suggest to you that most Americans have never heard an accurate presentation of the gospel. I think they've heard a version of it.

But has it really been accurate? Has it been a biblical Definition. 51% of American adults say they're at least somewhat open to a conversation about faith or the gospel with a stranger. 51%, that's pretty good. One out of every two people is open.

to you having a conversation with them. And if they're a part of your friends or your family, that number shoots up to 92%. They're literally waiting for you to start the conversation. Many Americans are like that man from Ethiopia that went to Jerusalem searching for God. He didn't find the Lord.

But he obtained a scroll of Isaiah, which he was reading, in his chariot. as he made the journey home. And the Lord directed the evangelist Philip to engage him. And Philip asked that man from Ethiopia, do you understand what you're reading? The man was reading from Isaiah 53.

Which happens to be a graphic description of the death of Jesus hundreds of years before it happened. Do you understand what you're reading? asks Philip. And the man from Ethiopia says, How can I unless someone shows me the way? A lot of people are waiting for someone like you to show them the way, and you know how to show them the way.

I was one of those people. I was a confused kid. I wanted to know God. That's why when people give me religious literature, I never threw it away. I would shove it into my pocket and I would take it home and throw it in a big drawer in my little room.

It was sort of like my God drawer. And every now and then I would empty the drawer on my bed and I would sit there trying to figure out what it all meant. I had little Bibles, I had information from Krishnas and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Amway, you name it, I had it. And I would read through it, like, how does this work? How can I come to know God?

I was literally waiting for someone to show me the way. And there's a lot of people like that out there right now. But here's really a reason why we don't share our faith. You probably won't like this one, but I think it's true. We just don't care.

We don't care. It's like, well, that's their problem. I've got my salvation. Why should I care about their salvation? I mean, this goes back to our childhood, established fact of the universe.

We don't like to share. You know, put a little child, give them a toy, they're happy. Put another child there and tell the one child to share the toy with the other child. Watch what happens. We don't like to share.

Years ago when my grandson Christopher was younger, my son Jonathan said to him, Son, can I have one of your chips? Because he had just given Christopher a big bag of potato chips, and Christopher was enjoying them.

Son, can I have a chip? asks Jonathan. Christopher takes the tiniest fragment of a chip. You've ever seen no son, that's not big enough. I want a bigger chip.

He takes a slightly larger one. No, no, son. I want a big chip. And finally, Christopher fished a big chip out of the bag, and you can see the pain on his face. To give that precious chip up, and that's us.

You know, we don't want to share, we don't want to tell them, and sometimes we even see non-believers as the enemy. And they're not the enemy. They're under the power of the enemy. And the enemy is the devil. In fact, speaking of non-believers, the Bible says we should be patient in our dealing with them.

And in 2 Timothy, Paul says, so they will come to their senses and escape from the devil's trap, for they're being held captive by him to do whatever he wants.

So, you need to pray. I need to pray. We need to pray that God would give us a heart for non-believers. And often we want to stay away from them, we want no contact with them. I don't know if you've ever heard of Penn Gillette.

He's a magician, comedian. Has an act with his partner in Vegas. He's an outspoken atheist. But he made an interesting statement. And it was after one of his fans gave him a Bible.

And Gillette, again, an atheist, said, quote, I don't respect people who don't proselytize. You think that it's really not worth telling someone because it would make you socially awkward? If you believe in heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell or missing out on eternal life, how much do you have to hate someone to not tell them? End quote. That's a really good insight from an atheist.

And he's absolutely right. I mean, if I believe this stuff. How many of you believe that heaven and hell are real? Raise your hand.

Okay, if we really believe this stuff. Why don't we tell people more often? I don't know if it's that we hate people. But we don't care enough about them. I think that's true.

But I'm going to tell you the story about a man who actually did. Hate, literally hate the people God called him to go to. This guy drank hater ain't. And his name was Jonah. Jonah was the reluctant evangelist.

Jonah was the original chicken of the sea.

Some of you don't even know what that means, but uh Chicken the sea tuna. Anyway. He was called to go to Nineveh. And he didn't want to go. And I'm going to tell you why in a few moments.

But no, when we think of Jonah, we think of one other thing. And you already know it: Jonah and the. That's it, the whale. It's all about the whale, but it isn't about the whale. There's only a few verses about the whale if it was a whale.

The actual word that is used in the original language could be translated sea monster. It could have been a whale. It could have been some unique creature God created just for Jonah. I don't know. Frankly, I don't really care.

The message of Jonah is not some dude got swallowed by a fish or sushi eating in reverse. The real story of Jonah is a man was called to go preach to a city that he didn't want to preach to because he hated the people of the city, and God persuaded him otherwise. And when he finally obeyed, it resulted in one of the greatest spiritual awakenings in human history.

So there's a lot we can learn from Jonah. He wasn't just reluctant. He was recalcitrant. That's a word that means someone who is stubborn and defiant. Reluctantness, well, maybe I'll do it, but I really don't want to.

To be recalcitrant is to say, I'm not doing it. I flat out refuse to do it. And that's who Jonah was.

Now, let's think about Nineveh for a few moments before we read some verses. Nineveh was around the size of San Francisco. After Jonah preached to them the entire city came To believe in God and turn from their sin. Can you imagine if all of San Francisco repented of their sin? Or all of Riverside, or all of Irvine, or all of Orange County, or all of Los Angeles, or all of New York City.

Well, that's exactly what happened. And it could happen. Because with God all things are possible. Let's read Jonah chapter 1. I'm going to read three verses.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshes from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa. He found his ship going to Tarshas, so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. We'll stop there.

Important statement. It says in verse 2, their wickedness had come up before God. This is a phrase that could be translated. It reached a high degree or the highest pitch. Nineveh was like an overflowing septic tank that stunk to high heaven.

Years ago, I was in on a houseboat. Out on Lake Powell, a few friends had houseboats, and so we were done and we were bringing it into the dock, and we had to clean out the septic tank. And my friend said, Oh, I know how to do this. I've had it.

Well, he didn't know how to do it that well because when he opened it up, it blasted in his face. Horrific. I just wish I had a camera. That's all I want. I laughed, I admit I laughed, I shouldn't have laughed, but I did.

But uh it's and it smelled bad. And so did Nineveh. It smelled really bad. Why? Because they are a really wicked city.

Nineveh was a city of the Assyrians and it was legendary for its cruelty. I was in England years ago and I went into one of their museums and they actually have artifacts from Nineveh. They have the gates of Nineveh, which is so amazing to look at. But Nineveh was known for their savagery. Assyrian kings would boast of skinning enemies alive.

cutting off limbs, burning children, and stacking corpses like trophies. One inscription says, quote, I flayed many and spread their skins on the walls, end quote. That reminds us of stories of the Nazis or of Hamas or ISIS or even the drug cartels today, that this horrific kind of activity, and yet. God loved them enough to send Jonah to preach to them, but they were the avowed. enemies of Israel.

Has God called you to go to an enemy or someone you just don't want to talk to. I mentioned earlier. that my mom was married and divorced seven times, and I had a full-time ministry evangelizing her former husbands. And I didn't enjoy that, quite frankly. But that was something I knew I needed to do.

And maybe there's someone you know right now. That God's called you to evangelize, and there's a discomfort. It's a cranky neighbor. It's that coworker that always is hitting you with hard questions. It's someone you knew from your childhood that's always harassing you for your faith, or someone else.

And I don't want to talk to them. In fact, the idea of them going to hell doesn't bother me that much at all. You need to say, God changed my heart, because that's not the attitude we should have. It would be like God going to an Israeli today. And saying, go to Hamas and preach to them, because if you don't, I'm going to destroy them.

Well, the Israeli would say, well, that sounds good. Go for it. And why not? Because after all, Hamas, a terrorist organization. Listen to this.

I just read. In the Jerusalem Post, that 50% of the students at Harvard support Hamas. How can you support a terrorist organization that would go in and murder 1,200 innocent men, women, and children? This is really a scary thing. But the point is, still, God loves those people.

He loves all people. He loves all of the people in Iran right now. And by the way, I'm hearing stories of hundreds of thousands of Iranians coming to put their faith in Jesus Christ. Isn't that great?

So we pray the more of that will happen, and we pray it will happen in Israel as well with this conflict they're having over there that Israelis, Iranians would come to Christ. That's what really needs to be happening. But the Bible says God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God does not want to judge us. As we'll see in this story in a few moments, he always is looking to forgive.

Before he judged Sodom and Gomorrah, he was looking for some righteous people, but for all practical purposes couldn't find any except Lot. Before the judgment came in the days of Noah, God was waiting before the judgment came. I think sometimes people think that we Christians want to see conflict in the Middle East, so Armageddon will come. And Christ will come. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We hope they find a peaceful solution. We know ultimately Armageddon will come. We know Christ will come. But we also pray for peace. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers.

And if you're older, blessed are the pacemakers too, right? But the Bible tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We want to see more people come to Christ. But we all have our Nineveh's in life. And by Nineveh, I mean the places we don't want to go.

By Nineveh, I mean the people we don't want to talk to. Let's take California as an example. Everybody's leaving California right now. From July 2021 to 2023, 750,000 people left California. From 2020 to 2021, so many were moving out of our state that U-Haul literally ran out of trucks and trailers.

It seems like the number one export of California is Californians, right? But listen to this: God has not given up on California, and I haven't either. And that's why we continue to pray that people will come to Christ in the state. Let's not forget. The last great spiritual awakening happened in Southern California.

It was called the Jesus movement. Let's not forget that on one day we baptized 4,500 people in Southern California, right? Let's not forget that we're celebrating 35 years of the Harvest Crusade at Angel Stadium in only days. 35 years. And we've seen Well, over 600,000 people walk down on that field and make a profession of faith to follow Christ.

So don't give up on our state.

So God wants to reach Nineveh. What does he do? He raises up a man of God. And he's still looking for men and women of God to raise up. He'd say, but Greg, I'm not qualified.

Oh, give me a break. Nobody's really qualified, are they? God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called. He's just looking for someone to say, Here I am, send me, Lord, instead of saying, There they are, send them, Lord. I mean, think of the people that God called in the Bible.

Moses was called by God. Moses thought it was over for him. He had messed things up big time. He had murdered that Egyptian, was living in exile. The Lord comes to him at the burning bush and tells him he wants to use Moses to deliver Israel from the bondage of Egypt.

And Moses says in Exodus 4, Lord, I'm not very good with words. I get tongue-tied and my words get tangled. And God said, now go. I'll be with you as you speak. And Moses again pleaded: Lord, please send someone else.

Does that sound familiar? Have you ever said anything like that before to the Lord? When Jeremiah was called, he said, Lord, Nord. Lord, no, he didn't say, Lord, Nord. What would that even.

What would that even mean? Look. Lord Nord. It's called the third service. What do you want from me?

He said, Lord, I'm too young. Not Lord, Lord. But think of the people God used in the Bible and how flawed they were. Noah got drunk. Abraham is very old.

Jacob was a liar. Peter openly denied Christ. The disciples fell asleep while praying and abandoned him when he was arrested. Timothy had an ulcer and Lazarus was dead, so what's your excuse? See, God can and God will use you.

So God told Jonah to go. As I've said before, God said go. Jonah said no. God said, oh? God will always have the last word.

What he got in that little boat. and a great storm came. And all of the sailors began to call on their various gods.

Well, Jonah was asleep. They said, wake up that guy, get him to call on his God. Who knows? Maybe he has the right one. Jonah comes up and admits, okay, listen, guys, I'm a Hebrew.

I'm a prophet of the Lord. I'm running from the Lord, and the storm has come because of me. Excuse me. But if you throw me overboard, the storm will stop. They said, Great, see you.

Over the side he goes. And yes, the great fish, the whale, whatever it was, swallowed him. In the belly of the whale, Jonah repented. And God gave him a second chance. The Bible says the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, and then Jonah.

Was vomited on the shore of Nineveh. This to me is very humorous. I mean, the whale could have just opened his mouth. Jonah could have walked out. No, he was barfed on the shore of Nineveh.

So he was believing and barfed. digested and deployed. I have more. He was righteous and wrathed. Bleached and beached.

Victorious and vomited. And finally, Barfton born again. A little humility there. Lord, I'll humble you a little bit, buddy. His skin was probably bleached white from the digestive juices of the whale.

And he comes out. 40 days and then it will be overthrown. Ah, who is this guy? But amazingly, God worked through him. He only spoke eight words, and it resulted in a revival.

Of the entire city. But what did God tell him to do? The Lord said, go preach to them. And we're very apprehensive about preaching. We usually use that word in a negative way.

You know, you're saying something to someone that's a human, don't preach to me. I don't need a sermon.

So, when someone finds out what I do for a living, like if I'm on a plane, I'm sitting next to someone, we're having a conversation, what do you do? And I say, well, I'm a preacher. They're like, oh no. Five hours next to a preacher.

So we don't think of preaching in a positive way. But the fact of the matter is, the primary way God has chosen to reach non-believers is through preaching.

Now, let me define preaching. It doesn't mean yelling, though sometimes you have to elevate your voice. It's proclamation, it's declaring. It's giving this important information to people, and the Bible says, how are they here without a preacher? In 1 Corinthians 1.21 says, it pleased God to the foolishness of the message preached to save those that believe.

So we all have a Nineveh. we may need to go to and we have a choice are we going to go or not Now, let me tell you the real reason Jonah did not want to go. The real reason Jonah did not want to preach to Nineveh was because he had a fear of success. Not a fear of failure. A fear of success.

And Jonah 4:2, after he preached to them, and indeed they did repent. He says this to God. Didn't I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshis. I know you, I knew you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.

I knew how easily you could cancel your plan for destroying these people. Isn't that amazing? Oh, I knew you'd do this. I knew you'd forgive them, and that's why I didn't want to preach to them because, God, I wanted you to destroy them. You know, it's funny, people say, well, there's a God of the New Testament in the Old Testament.

The God of the New Testament is loving and compassionate, and the God of the Old Testament is angry and wrathful. Nonsense. There's one God of the Old Testament and the New Testament. And here we see in the Old Testament how he shows mercy to the people that need to hear it. I want to end with one last point.

Sharing your faith can be exciting And believe it or not, fun at times. It's really true. Sharing the gospel is life-giving to us. As well as the person we share it with. You see, the gospel, by its very design, is meant to be given out, it's not meant to be hoarded.

You're blessed to be a blessing. And there's something wonderful that happens when you begin to articulate your faith to someone else. And something even greater happens when that person believes and you play some kind of role in it.

Next to knowing Christ yourself, one of the most joyful things you will ever do is see somebody else come to Jesus. through your influence. It's really true. Jesus said it's more blessed to give than to receive in the word. Blessed means happy.

It'll bring happiness to you as you tell others about it. I have found that the happiest Christians are the evangelistic ones. I have found that the unhappiest Christians are the nitpickiest ones. And some Christians just love to critique and debate instead of go out and share their faith. Let me give you an example.

One day I was out riding Harley-Davidson's, or just motorcycles, didn't matter which one they were, but all the others suck. But anyway. I don't even think that, really. I don't. Maybe I do.

I don't know. What does it matter? We're out riding motorcycles. And so we go to this Taco place. It was Taco Tuesday.

And we order tacos, so it's like four pastors in total. And one of them was a guy named Steve Wolburn that used to work for us at Harvest for years as our youth pastor. And one day I just said to Steve, Steve, I think you're the oldest youth pastor in America. What are you, like 60 now? Not quite that old, but maybe you ought to start your own church.

So Steve went up to LA, started a church called Core Church that's done really well. He's a great preacher and a real evangelist, not just in the pulpit, but one-on-one. Steve is always engaging people with the gospel. And here's how he always opens his conversations: he goes up to people cold and says the following. Has anyone ever told you that there's a God in heaven who loves you?

I've seen every reaction you can imagine to this question. Because I'll be standing with him. We're in line at Starbucks, you know, and there's like 10 people behind us. And we get to the front, and they'll say, Has anyone ever told you? And I'm thinking, here we go.

And I just want what's going to happen.

Sometimes they say, no, what's your order? You know, other times, no, no one's told me that.

So anywhere we're in this Mexican restaurant.

So two of the pastors are having a theological discussion about something. And Steve is sitting there and the server comes up and he's talking to the server and he turns to the server and says, Has anyone ever told you there's a God in heaven who loves you? Server says, no one's ever told me that before. And Steve starts sharing the gospel with this guy.

Meanwhile, the other two pastors are having their theological debate. I'm just watching all of this. And then, next thing I know, Steve is saying, Would you like to pray right now and accept Christ? And the server says yes. He leads a server in a prayer.

He accepts Christ on the spot, and the two pastors are oblivious. They're still having their discussion. After it was done, I said to them, guys, do you know what just happened there? No what? While you guys were discussing whatever.

Steve was leading that man to Christ. That to me is a picture of the church, right? That's how the church can be. We're having our little debates about this and that. Minutia.

Theological minutia. While a world is on its way to judgment, and we won't take the time to just tell them that they can be forgiven of their sin, we need to seize these opportunities, and we have a great one coming up. Right around the corner on July 19th. And this is so important, and I can't emphasize this enough. And I know I've been saying this forever because we've been doing these crusades forever.

But I'm not going to stop saying it. The primary way we see non-believers get to those crusades is when Christians bring them. I've told you this many times. Maybe some of you are hearing this for the first time. 85% of those that walk forward and make a public profession of faith to follow Christ were brought by a friend.

That's where you come in. You can be one of those people that plays a role in somebody else coming to Christ. But don't wait for the crusade to do it. Opportunities are all around you.

Sometimes we're saying, Lord, I want to be used by you. I want to be a missionary. I want to cross the sea for Christ. Hey, start by crossing the street for Christ. Talk to those that are around you.

Go into your world and preach the gospel. You have a sphere of influence. You have a pulpit. Doesn't look like this, probably. But you have a platform.

It could be a social media platform, it could be your friendships, your coworkers. Whoever it is, you have people that you can speak to. Go into all of your world and proclaim the gospel. But a lot of times we don't want, no, I'm not going to do what God wants me to do. I don't want God's will.

I want to live my own life and do what I want to do.

Well, that's not going to work out so well for you. You'll see. God's plans are always better than your plans for yourself. Heard a story about a man who was approached by an attorney. This man knew that attorney was going to serve him with papers, so he avoided him.

And the attorney kept trying to get in touch with him, and this man managed to obey this attorney for 14 years.

Well, sadly, this man got sick. with cancer And he went into a hospital and he was dying. And the attorney came into his hospital room. He said, fine, go ahead, serve me with your papers. Attorney said, I'm not serving you with papers.

I've been trying to tell you you have an inheritance of $15 million.

Now that's probably not a true story. Just some weird preacher story I heard somewhere. Maybe it is true, who knows? But the point of it is, here is God wanting to bless us and reveal his plan for us that's so much better than our plan for ourselves. And we're running from it thinking we have something better when we don't.

It's like the story of the prodigal son. He didn't want the rules and regulations of his father's house, so he went as far away as he could, just like old Jonah. And then he came to his senses and returned home. And maybe there's some prodigals listening to me right now that need to come home again, back to the Lord. Or maybe there's some of you.

And have never put your faith in Jesus. I've been talking about telling others about Jesus. Let me close by just telling you about Jesus. And ask you that question. Did you know there's a God in heaven who loves you?

A God, it was a plan for you. He loved you so much, he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for your sin. And Christ rose again from the dead, and now He stands at the door of your life, and He knocks, and He says, If you'll hear His voice and open the door, He will come in. And I ask you: have you asked Christ to come into your life? He's ready to come in right now.

and everything can change for you. But you must respond.

So, we're going to close in prayer, and I'm going to give you an opportunity. To ask Christ to come into your life or give you an opportunity to come back to the Lord again if you find yourself living as a prodigal. God gave Jonah a second chance. God will give you a second chance, or a third, or a fourth, or a fifth one. But you must come to him.

Let's pray now. Father, thank you for your word to us. Thank you for your love for us. And thank you for your offer of forgiveness to anyone who will believe. And now we pray for any that are here or are joining us, watching us, hearing us somewhere.

If they don't have this relationship with you, Let them come to you now, we pray.

Now while our heads are bowed. And our eyes are closed, and we're praying together. Maybe God has spoken to your heart. And you realize you need Jesus Christ. If you would like Christ to come into your life, If you would like him to forgive you of your sin, If you would like to know that when you die, you will go to heaven.

If you would like to fill that hole in your heart, so to speak, wherever you are, would you just lift your hand up? Let me just pray for you. Raise your hand up and say, I need Jesus today. Pray for me. God bless you.

God bless you. Anybody else, lift your hand up high where I can see it. I'll pray for you. God bless you. God bless.

God bless you too.

Some of you are watching in a different place, you're watching this screen, you're in Riverside, you're in Maui. You can raise your hand too. This is for you as well. Anyone else?

Now, while our heads are still bowed, maybe we still have some, we have some prodigals out there. You walk with the Lord at one time, but you've walked away from him and you need to return to him. If you want to come back to Jesus Christ. return to him again, like Jonah did. Like the prodigal son did.

Raise your hand up and let me pray for you right now. You need to come back to the Lord again. Raise your hand up. I'll pray for you. God bless you.

Wherever you are, God bless you, yes. All of you that have raised your hand, pray this prayer with me now. Just pray this. Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. And I know that you are the Savior.

I know you're full of love and compassion. And I want this relationship with you. Thank you for dying for me on the cross. and rising again from the dead. I turn now from my sin.

And I choose to follow you from this moment forward. is my Saviour and my Lord. as my God and my friend. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

God bless you. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on know God.

Yeah.