Tell Someone: Joy in Sharing the Gospel

Today's episode of A New Beginning is brought to you by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God.

Learn more at harvest.org. And while you're there, browse our library of free ebooks designed to help you grow in your faith. Sharing your faith can be an exciting experience. Coming up today, Pastor Greg Laurie dispels the myths and misconceptions that often keep believers from sharing the good news with those who don't know the Lord. Telling others about Jesus can be an adventure. Leading people to Jesus can be one of the greatest joys you've ever known, not a mere drudgery, not mere duty. It's a privilege. It's an opportunity.

It's a joy. And we're glad you're joining us today for A New Beginning with Pastor and Author Greg Laurie, featured speaker of the Harvest Crusades. Our mission statement is knowing Him and making Him known. And today Pastor Greg begins a series that will help us all deliver the good news of Jesus Christ in the most effective way possible. It's a good time to take some notes.

And if you miss any part of today's study, you can always get a replay instantly by going to our website, harvest.org. I know most of you probably have heard my story of how I came to Christ, but this sort of sets up what I am about to say so I am going to go over it just a little bit. I came to believe in Jesus at the age of 17. That was 10 years ago. No.

A little longer. But I came from this crazy home of dysfunction and alcoholism. My mom was a raging alcoholic. Married and divorced seven times.

Lots of boyfriends in between. The life I lived with her was craziness. And I saw things no little boy should ever see. And in many ways I had to become the parent of the relationship because she would basically pass out drunk every single night. So very early in life this set me on a search where I was thinking to myself, there has to be more to life than this.

I don't want to live this way. But as I got older and I got into high school I started walking in my mother's footsteps. I was out getting drunk on the weekends, partying with my friends, smoking, etc.

I couldn't believe it. Well around this time the drug culture is coming on strong and they said in those days if you take drugs you will become more aware. So I bought into the lie of it and I started effectively smoking pot every single day taking LSD on the weekends. My life was a mess and I did become more aware of how miserable I was. I felt like I was 70 at the age of 17. And I thought what is life about? For me it became process of elimination. Clearly it is not my mother's world which included affluence and all that.

Clearly it is not in my own world and the choices I have made. Where is it? Well I was going to school at Harbor High School. I had transferred over there to actually dive deeper into the drug culture and disconnect from my friends at my previous school. And as they got on campus a couple of my druggy friends said, Greg be careful. We have a lot of Jesus freaks on this campus. And they are everywhere. Don't talk to them.

Stay away from them. And I said, there is no way Greg Laurie would ever become a Jesus freak. Get serious. Famous last words. Ok. So I dismissed them as a bunch of crazy people.

I thought they were all effectively one taco short of a combination plate. Right. There is something wrong with these people. But one day I saw this cute girl. And I noticed she was talking to a friend of mine. And I thought I am going to walk up and introduce myself to this girl.

So I walked up there and I am waiting for a break in the conversation. I am kind of looking at this girl. And I know she has her notebook for school and a few textbooks for class. And then I saw she had one of these books.

One of these books you know with the shiny pages and the ribbon. And I went, oh no. It is a Bible. She is a Jesus freak. What a waste of a perfectly cute girl.

Why would she be into that? And I was curious now. And so one day at lunchtime I was walking across the campus looking for the cute Christian girl. And I found her sitting on the front lawn with a bunch of her fellow Christians singing songs about God. And I sat down close enough where I could sort of eavesdrop on their conversation but far enough away where my friends wouldn't think I was becoming one of them. And as I watched them I felt sorry for them. I thought they are so sad and pathetic. Look at their stupid smiles. Look at this weird peace they have. Too bad they can't be cynical and miserable like me. And then for the first time I can ever remember I tried a new thought on. I thought for a fleeting moment what if these Christians are right and you can't know God.

No way. There is no way you can have a relationship with God. This is all a fantasy.

They are living in a dream world. And a guy gets up to speak. His name was Lonnie. He was a youth pastor. And he shared a message. I don't remember most of what he said. All I remember was he had long hair and a beard and he looked like Jesus.

So I am just watching. Whoa. This guy looks like Jesus you know. And then he made one statement that stayed with me. He said, Jesus said you are either for me or against me. I looked around at the Christians and I thought well they are definitely for him.

And I am not one of them. Does that mean I am against Jesus. Well I didn't want to be against Jesus. I mean he was my God of choice in times of crisis. Whenever there was trouble I called out to Jesus for sure. I always admired him. I had seen all of his movies.

But I didn't know he could be known in a personal way. And then this guy Lonnie who was speaking said, if you want to ask Jesus to come into your life get up right now and walk forward and stand here and pray. And a bunch of kids got up and walked forward to the front of the room and I thought there is no way I could do that. I hung my head. My hair was hanging in my eyes.

Use your imagination. I used to have the most awesome surfer wave coming right. I do this all the time.

Those were the days. But so my hair is sort of hanging in my eyes. I am thinking there is no way I can do this. And the next thing I knew I was up there. And I am praying with these people. And as I am praying I am thinking this isn't going to work for me. I am not the religious type.

God won't hear this prayer. And after I was done praying I didn't feel a thing and I wasn't really sure anything did happen. But Christ had come into my life that day. Well I wasn't quite sure where I fit in because I knew I didn't want to go hang out with my old low life druggie friends. But I wasn't quite comfortable with the Christians yet.

They were so intense. It is a praise the Lord this and hallelujah that. They said I don't know if I want to hang out with them. So I thought I am going to be a solo Christian. It is just me and God.

So that weekend passed and it was Monday at school. I am walking along sorting this all out of my mind. And some guy yells, brother Greg. Brother Greg. I am thinking who is this guy.

And he comes running up to me. Brother. And I am thinking he is not my brother. Unless he is a brother from a different mother.

I thought well then again with all of my mom's marriage and divorces who knows you know. No. He is going, bro praise God. I am like ok whatever. Go ahead if you want to.

I don't know. What am I supposed to say. Hallelujah. Ok. Bro I saw you accepted Christ last Friday. Yeah. Bro you need to really start getting in the Word. What? You need to read the Bible.

Oh ok. Yeah. I got a Bible for you. And he pulls out the weirdest looking Bible I have ever seen.

It was covered in suede and it had two popsicle sticks glued together in the form of a cross. Now being a designer my aesthetic senses were immediately offended. So he gives it to me. Ok.

Thanks a lot. Go away now. Go away now. So he walks away and I am like what am I going to do with this thing. I am not going to walk around school with a popsicle stick Bible. So I shoved it in the pocket of my coat.

I ripped the pocket in the process. I was a very bold witness for Christ as you can see. I went over to see my old friends. I used to go over to this guy's house that was near our high school and we literally would get high every single day.

Gee I wonder why my grades were so low. Anyway when I got over to my friend's house I took my Bible out of my ripped pocket and put it in the bushes in front of the house. You know I hadn't seen these guys since I accepted Christ. So I walked over there like we did every day. And I came walking in. They said, Lori where have you been? Didn't see you in the weekend.

Oh nowhere. What have you been up to? Nothing. Wow man.

Hey we got some good dope. You want to smoke it? No. Lori what is wrong with you? I don't want it I said. What is wrong with you?

Nothing is wrong with me. Meanwhile the Holy Spirit started tugging on my heart and He is saying, tell them about Jesus. And I am saying, no way.

Not going to happen. So they are asking me more questions. I am trying to ignore them. Suddenly the front door opens up and my friend's mother comes bursting in. What is she holding but my Bible? Who does this belong to?

Like I have committed a crime. Who does this belong to? I thought this woman has kids doing drugs in her house every day and she is worried about a Bible. Who does this belong to? Every guy in the room goes to the Popsicle stick Bible and then it goes to me.

They just knew there was a connection. I said that is mine. What? Lori what did you say? He said it is mine. What is it?

It is a bubble. So what? It is a Bible. What? Bible.

B-I-B-L-E. It is a Bible. One of my buddies said, oh praise the Lord brother Greg. Are we going to be Christians now and follow Jesus? I said, no I am going to hit you in the mouth. That is all I am going to do. I hadn't read 1 Corinthians 13 yet.

I hadn't read anything yet. They started harassing me. Mocking me. Giving me the hardest time. And I knew right then and there I am not going to hang out with this group anymore. That was when I realized that hey this is a change in my life. So let's just say that my first attempt at sharing the gospel was a complete failure.

Does that maybe describe you? In the past two years after my dear son went to Heaven three days before his 25th birthday, I continually refer to your book for encouragement and hope as you know firsthand what it is like to lose your own precious son. I also appreciate your podcasts and glean wisdom from them.

Please pray for me as I still cry. God bless you, your ministry and your dear family. Thank you for being God's messenger. For information on Pastor Greg's book, Hope for Hurting Hearts, search for that title at Harvest.org. And if you have some words to share of how Pastor Greg studies and God's word have touched your life, drop them an email at Greg at Harvest.org.

In fact, do it today would you? That's Greg at Harvest.org. Well today Pastor Greg is beginning a series offering practical help in sharing the good news. It's a message called Tell Someone.

Find out more at Harvest.org. It's been said there are two things that Christians and non-Christians have in common. They're both uptight about evangelism. We're uptight about sharing our faith and non-believers are uptight about us sharing our faith with them.

But there's no getting around it. Jesus has given to us as His followers what is called the Great Commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Actually there are two versions of the Great Commission. One is in the Gospel of Matthew. The other is in the Gospel of Mark. In Matthew's version Jesus says, all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of 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. Then there is Mark's version of the Great Commission which is go into all the world and preach the gospel to every person. But yet many of us are not doing this.

In fact for many of us the Great Commission has become the great omission. Consider these statistics. Ninety-five percent of all Christians have never led another person to Christ. Only two percent of churchgoers have invited an unchurched person to church in the last year. Two percent. Think about that. Fifty-nine percent of all Christians say they seldom or never share their faith with others.

What is going on here? How did the Great Commission become the great omission? Now let me say something that might surprise you. But I believe it. I believe to fail to share my faith can be a sin before God. You say, now Greg you have gone too far.

Let me explain. Because the Bible speaks of sins of commission and omission. Do you know the difference? Heard the story of a Sunday school teacher that was talking about sin in her class to the kids. She asked them, do any of you know what the sin of commission is?

Little girl sitting up in the front raised her hand. The teacher called on her. The little girl said, the sin of commission is when you do something you should not do. Teacher said, that is exactly right.

Very good. Now does anyone know what the sin of omission is? Little boy sitting in the back of the room waving his hand back and forth.

The teacher calls on him. Ok son what is the sin of omission? He says, those are the sins you want to do but you haven't gotten around to yet.

Not exactly. The little girl had it right. The sin of commission is when I do what I should not do. I cross a line. The Bible talks about trespassing sin.

You have seen a sign in a park. No trespassing. I step over that line. I break a commandment of God. That is the sin of commission. But a sin of omission is not doing what I should do. Again a sin of commission is doing what I should not do. A sin of omission is not doing what I should do. And I am told over in the book of James chapter 4 verse 17, to him that knows to do good and does not do it to him it is sin. So it can be a sin to not show the gospel.

Let me illustrate. Let's say you are walking down the street and you heard a scream and you looked and there was a house on fire. And someone yelled out, there is a child in there. Now let's say you heard that and walked over and looked at it for a few moments. And then just kept walking.

Would that be a bad thing? I mean at the very least call 911. Better yet why don't you maybe run into that burning house and save that child. Yet at the same time we walk every day past burning homes so to speak.

People that are facing something worse than a burning home. They are facing an eternal fire and we do absolutely nothing. In fact we don't even really care because as far as we are concerned our eternal destiny is taken care of.

Why worry about them? But yet the Bible says that we should snatch people from the flames of judgment. There in the book of Jude chapter 1. God wants to use you to bring other people to Him. Don't ask me why God chooses to use people.

But it is clear that He does. He wants to use you to bring others to Jesus. I believe if you will hear, process, and implement the principles that I will share with you from the Word of God that you will be leading people to Christ before you know it.

You might say, Greg that is a bit presumptuous isn't it? Is not conversion the work of the Holy Spirit? Yes that is true. But honestly sometimes that is said by people that do absolutely nothing. In evangelism there is God's part and there is our part. Our part is to proclaim the gospel. God's part is to convert people.

But we all have a part to play. The Holy Spirit is going to nudge you at times to share your faith but He is not going to take you over and make you do it. You are not going to turn into a little gospel robot. You know you must believe in Jesus or something like that. I don't know. Robots seem like they walk like that. Robots never walk that fast you know.

No. He is going to nudge you. And you can say yes to Him and He will empower you and give you the right words. Or you can say no to Him and miss the opportunity. But this is what God wants us to do.

But listen. This series is not designed to make you feel bad if you have not been all that effective at sharing your faith. In fact I hope it is the very opposite of that. I hope it will inspire you. Because I want you to understand that sharing your faith can be an exciting experience. Telling others about Jesus can be an adventure. Leading people to Jesus can be one of the greatest joys you have ever known.

And dare I say it. Being used by God can be fun. That is right fun. Not a mere drudgery. Not mere duty. It is a joy. It is a privilege. It is an opportunity.

And listen to this. We are told in Psalm 126. Those who go out weeping carrying seed to sow will return with songs of joy carrying their sheaves with them. And the idea of that is I go out and I sow my little gospel seeds in the lives of people and periodically the Lord will allow me to see a person come to Christ. And that brings great joy.

Not just on earth but check this out. Every time a lost person believes in Jesus there is applause in heaven. The Bible says that there is joy in the presence of the angels over every sinner that comes to Jesus Christ. And next to knowing Christ myself to me the greatest joy I know is seeing others come to Christ and then growing in their faith. John said, I have no greater joy than to know my children are walking in the truth.

Such a joy. And then we are also told by Jesus Himself it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. By the way the word blessed can be translated happy. It is a happier thing to give than it is to receive. Now you tell that to a kid and they won't believe it.

No. To receive is happier. But as you get older you discover the joy of giving, don't you? And it is a joy to give out the gospel. Pastor Greg Laurie with good encouragement to start this new series called, Tell Someone, here on A New Beginning. That's the title of the series and also the title of today's message. And to take this help a significant step further, I want to check out the online training course Pastor Greg has developed to coincide with this Tell Someone series.

It's completely free. In this course you'll receive a lesson per week and it comes via email. And at the end of six weeks you'll be better able to share your faith with confidence and with a firm grasp of the gospel message. Again, it's the Tell Someone online study course.

Learn more about this free course at harvest.org. You know, Pastor Greg, I'm a sucker for crime shows, you know, especially where they solve real life crime stories, especially cold cases. And we happen to have a real life retired cold case detective with us today.

And as much as I'd like to sit here and hear some stories of cases he's worked on, he's here to talk about a more important case. Isn't that right? Yeah, that's right. It's a brand new book from my friend J. Warner Wallace. And the J stands for Jim, right? It does.

Yes, it does. J. Warner Wallace and his new book is called, Person of Interest, subtitled, Why Jesus Still Matters in a World That Rejects the Bible. You know, I think this book is really unique, Jim, because you are basically looking at the impact of Jesus on culture in general. There are actually people walking around that will say, Jesus Christ never existed. This is all a man-made myth. Of course, that's such a ridiculous statement. But what would you say to someone that would say, well, all we have is the biblical account.

You can't trust that. So why should we even believe that a man named Jesus ever even walked this earth? Okay, so I'm with you, just for a point of argument, like we're in trial.

Yeah. Just for sake of argument, let's just toss out the biblical manuscript. Okay. You don't trust that he ever existed. You can't trust what the Bible says about Jesus. Okay, fine.

Let's just take it out. Is there a way to make the case for Jesus, even if every single Bible and the history of Bibles had all been destroyed? Well, it turns out there is. It's kind of like when you make a case in a cold case where you've got, say, a husband who kills his wife, and then he gets rid of her body, and we take a missing person's report. He says, oh, she ran off.

And so then years later, we decided, this doesn't seem, she never came back, but something is up. Let's open it as a homicide. So now we're working as a homicide.

Okay. But we've got no crime scene. He moved.

He cleaned the place up. We got no physical evidence at all. How do we make that kind of a case to a jury?

Well, here's how we do it. I always tell the jury on the day of the murder, a bomb went off. Something explosive happened, but there was a long fuse that burned up to that explosion, and there was all kinds of shrapnel afterwards. We're going to make this case to you from simply the fuse and the fallout, all the stuff that led up to this day and all the stuff that followed. If all you did was look at the history of humanity, everything that leads up to the appearance of this explosive moment that breaks the BC into AD, or if you want, before the common era, into the common era, whatever you want to term it, something explosive happens right there that changes history. So let's just examine the fuse.

Let's examine the fallout. And here's what you're going to discover is that, yes, there's only one cause for that turn in history, and his name was Jesus of Nazareth. And you can reconstruct the story of Jesus without any reference to any biblical manuscript, just from the fallout of history in the arts, in music, in literature, in science, in education.

As a matter of fact, let me give you an example of this. If all you did was go and visit the top 15 universities in the world today, here's what you discover. They are all founded by Christians. The top 15, all founded by Christians. Now, they may not be Christian anymore, but they were founded by Christians. Oh, yeah.

That's right. And hospitals and relief organizations and all the songs. Well, guess what? If you just took a look at the buildings, you know, no Bibles now, just the buildings, the buildings of these campuses of those top 15 schools, you're going to discover they're covered in verses. They're covered in artwork of Jesus. You could reconstruct the story of Jesus just from the buildings of the top 15 universities in the world. So unless you're willing to destroy all the top 15 universities, you're going to be stuck with the story of Jesus, even if you didn't have a New Testament. How about a nation called the United States of America?

What is the role of Jesus Christ in the Bible itself in the establishing of our country? Oh, again, here's what's great. Even people who would say, I'm not a religious person, I'm not a pastor, let's say. How about this? Do you realize there's always this fraction between science and faith, right?

Like you can't do both. Well, really? Go back and look at the thing called the scientific revolution. And all of the fathers of all the scientific disciplines, here's what you're going to discover. The vast majority were Christians who also wrote about Jesus and their private writings. If all you had was the private writings of the top scientists in the history of science, you could reconstruct the story of Jesus. Unless you want to get rid of all those people too from history, you're still stuck with the story of Jesus.

It's like taking a drink from a fire hydrant here talking to Jim. All this explosive information is contained in this book that we are offering to you. It's called Person of Interest by J. Warner Wallace, Why Jesus Still Matters in a World That Rejects the Bible. And we'll send you this book for your gift of any size because we want to put quality resources into your hands and we also want to give you an opportunity to support us as we teach the word of God and proclaim the gospel all around this planet. So if you'd like your own copy, Dave's going to give you the contact information and we'll send you Person of Interest. Yeah, that's right.

It's brand new. In fact, we have advanced copies. You won't find it anywhere else just yet. So thanks for sending an investment so that this daily study can continue. And let us thank you with a copy of Person of Interest by J. Warner Wallace. You can write us at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime 24-7, again at 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to Harvest.org. Well, next time, more practical insight on our privilege and responsibility of sharing the good news with those around us. Tune in for A New Beginning. This is the day, the day when life begins. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to A New Beginning. This is a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners. So for more content that can help you know God and equip you to make Him known to others, or to learn more about how you can become a Harvest Partner, just go to Harvest.org.