Evangelism, Jesus Style: Building Bridges, Not Barriers

You're listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God.

Visit our website and learn more about Harvest Partners at harvest.org. Laurie offers important insight on how to season our words with grace and love. And we're glad you're joining us today here on A New Beginning with Pastor Greg Laurie, featured speaker of the Harvest Crusades, with an exciting one-night event coming in October. Given this important evangelistic event, how should we be sharing our faith? Well, Pastor Greg answers that question today here on A New Beginning as he continues his series, Tell Someone You Can Bring Others to Jesus.

Get details at harvest.org. And there you can get an instant replay of today's study. Jesus did not say that the whole world should go to church, but he did say that the church should go to the whole world. Let's quickly review what we've already discovered together in this series that we're calling Tell Someone You Can Bring Others to Jesus. I want to talk about the who, the where, the why, and the when of preaching the gospel.

And then today I'm going to key in on the how. So let's talk about who. Who is called to go into all the world and preach the gospel?

We are. Jesus gave us our marching orders. They are in Matthew 28.

Go and make disciples of all the nations. He said, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. By the way, in the original language that is not a suggestion.

That's a command. Our Lord, our commander, orders us to go into all the world. And also in the Greek, the implication is this is to every person. In other words, it is not just to the so-called professionals, pastors, evangelists, missionaries.

No. It is to every Christian. It is to every construction worker who calls on the name of the Lord. It is to every stay at home mom and soccer mom. And it is to every student. And it is to every senior citizen.

And it is to every person everywhere who is a believer. Where are we to preach the gospel? Where?

Short answer. Everywhere. In Mark we have a variation on the Great Commission.

Mark 16, 15. He says, go into the world and preach the gospel. We could simplify it by saying go into all of your world. I know the world is a big place.

But your world is a lot smaller. Your sphere of influence. Your neighborhood. Your family. People that you know.

Go into your world. So really what we want to engage in, as I mentioned recently, is Frangelism. You are saying, what is that? Evangelizing people named Fran?

Well yes, them too. But Frangelism is just an acronym. F R A N. Help you to remember who you are to go to. F stands for friends. R stands for relatives. A stands for associates.

And N stands for neighbors. So go to all of your friends and to all of your relatives and to all of your associates and to all of your neighbors and preach the gospel. Our objective is not to isolate. It is to infiltrate and it is to permeate.

Number three. Why are we to do this? Because the primary way that God chooses to reach people is through people.

1 Corinthians 1 says, in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to reach those that do not believe. I don't know why God has chosen it. But the fact of the matter is the primary way God has chosen to reach lost people is through the verbal communication of the gospel message.

It is for people to speak to people. Why are we to do this? Well we are to do it because we should care. We learn that from the Care Bears.

Right? Because they care a lot. They care a lot. And so should we. And if we really care about lost people we will share the gospel with them.

Number four. When are we to do it? All the time. We are always to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. 1 Peter 4 says, preach the word. Be persistent whether the time is favorable or not. Or as another translation puts it, be on duty at all times. And 1 Peter 3.15 says, set Christ apart in your heart.

Listen. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have but do it with gentleness and respect. In a recent message I shared how when I was about two weeks old in the Lord I had the opportunity to lead a woman to the Lord on the beach. I did this with a little gospel track that I hadn't even memorized yet. And so I was very excited. And now I wanted to tell everyone.

So I was out sharing my faith. And so one day I am walking down the street and I run into my old buddy Greg. He spelled his name with two G's. We went to elementary school together. We had known each other for years. So I had come to Christ and Greg and I had known each other all these years.

We used to do drugs together in all honesty. And so I remember saying these words to Greg. Greg don't worry about me. The last thing you are ever going to see is Laurie referring to me.

He always called me Laurie. The last thing you will ever see is Laurie walking around with like a cross hanging around his neck and a Bible saying praise the Lord. I am not going to go that far.

So just keep that in mind. So now fast forward maybe a month. I have led this lady to the Lord. I am walking down the street and who is walking in my direction but Greg. Before I could catch myself I said praise the Lord. And he looked at me and I looked at him looking at me and we both laughed out loud because hanging around my neck was a cross. In my hand was a Bible. And I just said praise the Lord. I wasn't embarrassed. I said I know Greg. This is funny.

I said I would never do it. But Greg Christ has changed my life. And it really is real Greg. And so he is saying well tell me about it. And so we are talking and as I am sharing I am thinking oh wouldn't it be fantastic if Greg would come to Christ right now. And you know I am an expert now. I have led one person to the Lord.

Surely he will come too. And so I am just sharing everything I know with him. And he seems very interested. And all of a sudden seemingly out of nowhere some guy steps into our conversation. He is a little bit older.

Probably in his mid-twenties. We are both young kids still. And he looks at me and I am thinking who is this guy. And he says I have a question for you Christian. And I am standing there.

You know I have got my Bible and my cross. And I am like yes. Yeah. Ok. If God is so real how could a God of love let people suffer.

And if God is real what about this. This. This. It is about five things. And I am like ah. I didn't have the answer. And Greg says yeah Laurie what about that.

I didn't know. I said gosh I don't know. And man it was just like a train wreck. And I walked away from that just devastated.

I felt like such a failure. And I prayed. And I committed myself to study so I would have those answers as we read in 1 Peter 3.15. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you. By the way that comes from a Greek word apologia where we get our English word apologetic from. An apologetic or apologetics or an apologist does not mean we are apologizing for our faith.

It means technically you are giving a legal defense as in a court of law. So that is what I want to talk about today. How to share the gospel. There is a right and there is a wrong way to do it for sure.

Here is where the rubber really meets the road. And there was no better example of how to do it than Jesus Christ Himself. Yes He is God.

Yes He is our Savior and our Lord. But He also was the master communicator. And He built an amazing bridge to people He spoke with. It said in Scripture the common people heard Him gladly. And that simply means regular folks understood what He was saying.

He didn't speak over anyone's head. Einstein once said, quote, We should speak in such a way that our grandmother understands, end quote. I would expand that and say we should speak in such a way that a child can understand. Because our message is simple. It is not simplistic.

But it is simple. And did not Jesus say we should become as little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. And to the point of children were they not drawn to Him as well. Remember the story of the children coming to Jesus wanting to be with Him. And I think the problem that a lot of people have is they take that which is simple and they make it complex.

They add stuff that isn't essential. Even in their evangelism they speak in terminology that people do not understand. It is like you have come from another planet. Hi.

Hey. Are you redeemed, saved, washed in the blood and part of the body of Christ? Do you realize how weird that sounds to a nonbeliever?

Washed in blood and part of the body of Christ? I am not saying we should not use biblical terminology. But what I am saying is we should not assume that our listener understands our lingo or Christianese as I like to call it.

We need to translate. Because here is our objective. It is to build a bridge not burn one. Again our objective is to build a bridge not burn one.

And it is also to establish contact with that person. I have seen Christians armed with Bible verses go out and quote share their faith and totally alienate their hearer. In a sense they won the debate but they lost the soul. If that is the case you have missed the point. It is not to win the debate.

It is not to say I am smarter than you and I have the answer to every question. Hopefully we will have some answers but we deliver them remember as we already read there in 1 Peter with gentleness and respect. In just a moment Pastor Greg explains how selfies teaches something important about how to share the gospel.

That is coming up next. Emails, letters and phone calls from listeners are so encouraging to us. And they let us know the effectiveness of these studies. Hi Pastor Greg. I want to thank you for helping me learn and understand the word of God.

I also wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your sense of humor. Even in my darkest times when I listen to your sermons I can go from crying to laughing. Keep up the wonderful work of God and God bless you and your family. What an encouragement to hear that Pastor Greg's teachings are helping this woman and many others like her.

Let us know how these studies have impacted you. Send an email to Pastor Greg. Greg at Harvest.org. Again that is Greg at Harvest.org. Well Pastor Greg is delivering some very practical insight today on sharing Christ in the most appropriate and most effective way possible.

It is a message called Evangelism Jesus Style available at Harvest.org. Let me tell you a little secret that you probably already know. Everybody's favorite subject is themselves. I like to talk to a person and ask them what their opinions are about various subjects. I mean what is the most popular kind of photography today? Selfies. How do we go from telephoto lenses to selfie sticks? You know I want to get this lens and photograph these beautiful things.

No I want an object that will allow me to photograph myself even more effectively than I am doing it now. Here I am here. Here I am there. Look at me.

Well listen people love to talk about themselves. So our objective is to build the bridge to the person. And here in John 4 we see Jesus doing exactly that with a woman. Now we call her the woman at the well. We don't know her name. I am sure she had one. But this woman really messed up her life. She was not an educated woman.

I don't think she had any understanding of Scripture. She made a lot of bad decisions. And most of them were involving men. In fact this girl was married and divorced five times. Now that is pretty radical for back then.

Nowadays not so radical. And that day scandalous. And that is why she came to the well at 12 in the afternoon when the sun was at its hottest. Because no one wanted to hang out with this woman who went to the well. So she encounters Jesus here.

And I love the way he engaged her. Frankly this woman at the well reminds me of my own mother. Except my mom beat her.

My mom was married and divorced seven times. But she was searching just like the woman at the well. I want you to see how Jesus reached out to her. So we can learn how to be a bridge instead of a barrier to people coming to Christ. How to be a stepping stone instead of a stumbling block. And here is Jesus engaging this woman.

Let's read about it. John 4 starting in verse 3. He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But he needed to go through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar. Near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there and Jesus therefore being wearied from his journey sat by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

That is 12 noon. And a woman of Samaria came to draw water. 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 him, How is it that you being a Jew would ask 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 who it is that says to you give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. This brings us to point number one. Evangelism Jesus style. Doing it the way Christ did it starts with a burden.

We have already alluded to this. Verse 4 says he needed to go through Samaria. A little background. Jews and Samaritans they didn't like each other. In fact they actually hated each other. That is why the Samaritan woman said, Why would you a Jew ask for a drink of water from me a Samaritan?

Don't you know we don't deal with each other? There was a strong hatred and a cultural prejudice between these peoples. But Jesus needed to go. By the way this was not the shortest route to his destination. He effectively went out of his way to meet this woman.

Why? Because in the councils of eternity it was decided that a burned out immoral woman was going to meet Jesus on that day. She had an appointment with God. And you know there are times when you will be out and about your business. And you are going to walk smack dab into the middle of God's will. And you are going to come across a person that has an appointment with God. And God wants to reach that person through you. So here is Jesus.

He sees us sitting there at the well. And it is a good reminder to us that we need to overcome our prejudices and our bias. Sometimes God may lead us to go to someone that is different than us. They are older. They are younger. They are a different race.

They are a different social economic background. Who cares? If God leads you to go to that person, go to that person. I remember shortly after I was converted I felt very strong that the Lord was leading me to only share the gospel with really cute girls.

I was convinced this was right. It was a great way to meet girls. Well that didn't last long. The Lord said, what are you doing? You know.

That was obviously not from Him. But we need to go to people that are different than us. Leave our comfort zone.

Number two. If we want to evangelize Jesus style we need to use tact. T-A-C-T. Tact. Jesus the master evangelist used something that many Christians seriously lacked. And that is tact. Other words for tact are diplomacy, sensitivity. One person defined tact as skill and grace in dealing with others. Isaac Newton said quote tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

I like that. Making a point without making an enemy. I can state truth in a loving way even if the truth is rather harsh at times. You can do it in a friendly way. But a lot of times we will come up to a person and say crazy stuff to them like, hey did you know you are going to hell?

Wow what a great conversation starter. Way to build a wall instead of a bridge. Well I have seen it. That was not Jesus style.

And that should not be ours either. You know when I present the gospel in a service or in a crusade it is a monologue effectively. I am standing behind a pulpit and I am proclaiming the truth of God's Word to people. It is a monologue. But when I engage people one on one it is a dialogue.

I don't walk around with a pulpit on wheels. I don't know if you know that. Take it to the market. Push it along you know and grab the bread and the eggs and the milk. Oh hi. Hello there. Maybe by the bottled water.

If you drink of this water you will thirst again. Something like that. I don't do that. When I talk to people one on one I don't project like this.

Hey. You know I just talk to them like a regular person. It is a dialogue. And in most cases when we share our faith it is going to be more of a dialogue. Not a monologue. We are not supposed to be evangelism machines.

We are supposed to have give and take and listen to the person we are speaking with. Jesus modeled this. Look at Jesus with Nicodemus in chapter 3 of John. And then we see Him with the woman at the well. Then we see Him with the rich young ruler.

And then we see Him with Zacchaeus. He could have just said to her, I am God. You are not. Let's cut to the chase. Repent. Would that have been accurate? Yes. Would that have been effective?

No. So we start with tact. A while back I was getting in a taxi and I sat down and I prayed.

I said, Lord if you want me to talk to this guy just open the door. So I am just sort of sitting there and we are cruising along. And we go by one of these things. They call them a ghost bike.

Have you ever seen these before? When a bicyclist is killed on a road sometimes they will put up a cross to commemorate it. And sometimes they put up a bike that is painted white.

And there will be flowers put in front of it. They call it a ghost bike. And so we saw one of those. And I said, Oh man someone died here. And he says, Yes people are killed on this highway all the time. I said, That is so sad. And he said, Yeah a friend of mine was out here riding here a while back and he got hit and killed and the driver just took off.

I said, That is so wrong. And this guy's name was Tom. I said, Tom let me ask you a question. What do you think happens after we die? And he says, Well I think that we go off somewhere and come back later as another life form and we keep doing that over and over again. And then he says to me, Well what do you think?

I was waiting for it. I didn't just blurt out what I thought. I asked him what he thought first.

What do you think? And the other guy said, Well I believe that we have an eternal soul inside of us and when we die we go into eternity and when we believe in Jesus Christ I think we will go to heaven. And one day the Bible says, Heaven will come to earth. Tom says, I like your version of the afterlife better than mine. I said, Well Tom it is not my version.

I didn't invent it. This is what the Bible says. And this is what Jesus said. Then I quoted from John 14 and we talked for a while and he said, You know my family my wife has always called me a doubting Thomas.

I said, Yeah it is a funny thing. Your name is Tom isn't it? Well Tom here is what Jesus said to doubting Thomas in John 14. I am the way the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father but by me.

Our cab ride had come to an end effectively. And I told Tom I would pray for him. So I was sowing the seed there.

But I was looking for that open door. Some very practical insight on how to sow seeds and engage people in conversation about the Lord. Pastor Greg Laurie with his message today on a new beginning called Evangelism Jesus style. Now our current studies are a part of Pastor Greg's series called Tell Someone. And because of the importance of this information Pastor Greg has developed an online training course that corresponds with this series. It is a six week course that comes to you a lesson per week via email. And it is absolutely free. At the end of six weeks you can be fully equipped and ready to share your faith just as Jesus has commanded us all to do. Learn more about the free Tell Someone training course at harvest.org. And then we are so happy to make available a fantastic book to help you share your faith.

It is called Person of Interest by retired cold case detective J. Warner Wallace. Jim Wallace. Jim you point out there is a relationship between what is true and what matters. You say few of us order our lives around and make decisions based on our belief in Bigfoot. You know if we don't believe something is true then it doesn't matter. As we share our faith it is important to remember that an unbeliever may not think Christianity matters to them because they don't believe it is true. We need to start at that point don't we?

Yeah there is no doubt about that. You know it has been said that one of the biggest challenges to theism, the belief in God, is atheism right? The belief that there is no God. But I think it is actually a bigger challenge and that is what people have started to call apotheism.

In other words that there isn't a sense of urgency about this. Why would I care about this? If it isn't true why would I even give my life to this? This is why we really wanted to focus on you know does Jesus matter? Well it turns out he matters in all the areas that really matter to me as an atheist. Look as an unbeliever I only became a believer when I was about 35.

Walked into a church and no interest. I didn't think it was even worth debunking. I've got a good friend Lee Strobel with a case for Christ and Lee and Leslie.

Leslie became a Christian first. He was out to prove her wrong. No I wasn't out to prove it. Why would I investigate the Easter Bunny?

Nobody does that okay? This is just so patently false it's not even worth my time. But it turns out that as I examined the things in my own life that matter the most, which would have been education and science and the arts. I've got a background in the arts.

I was an architect before I became a police officer. These are the things that matter to me. Even in terms of a spirituality that is non-Christian. Well it turns out that all of those areas, Jesus matters in those areas. It's Christ followers who shaped art the way we know it today. Shaped music the way we know it today. Shaped education and science. As a matter of fact no one's had a bigger impact on non-Christian religions than Jesus of Nazareth.

So all those things that matter most to us as a culture it turns out we owe a debt of gratitude to Jesus of Nazareth. I think when people realize that at least they might initiate this effort to decide who is he? Let's just investigate who this guy is because it turns out he changed the world. So Jay Warner Wallace, Jim who's sitting next to me right now is a Dateline featured homicide detective. So he's approaching this from a different perspective. He's worked on actual cold cases. He knows what he's talking about.

He's presented the evidence to juries and seen people convicted for their crimes. So he's approaching this from a different angle. But one thing you said to me Jim I found interesting is this almost is like a kid's book for an adult. And as I looked through it you mentioned you have a background in design as do I. And you've illustrated it pretty much looks like almost every page or at least every other page. Maybe every page has an illustration of some kind which makes this very digestible. It's like wow I can wrap my mind around this. You've really broken this down in a way that just an ordinary person could understand it.

Well it is like a kid's, it's like a graphic novel in a sense right. The idea is I think we're in a generation of people, myself included, we have become so conditioned to seeing it. And you even use that expression you know I see what you mean.

And jurors will do this right. Well yeah I got it once I saw it once you found a way of showing me. And so I wanted to be able to illustrate it in a way that people could see. There's over 400 illustrations. And so we spent probably about three months just illustrating the book.

My goodness. But the idea here is to help jurors, whoever reads the book, to see what we're talking about. Yeah so the juror is the reader.

That's right. And maybe you know somebody that's not a believer. This would be a great book to put in their hands. But it's also a great book for the believer to equip them to respond to the questions that non-believers ask.

It's called Person of Interest written by J. Warner Wallace and is a former cold case detective. And we want to offer this to you for your gift of any size here at A New Beginning. Just so you can be better equipped to share your faith with other people. So for your gift of any size we'll send you a copy of Person of Interest by J. Warner Wallace. Yeah such an effective tool for helping you share your faith and really for helping you understand why you believe what you believe.

It's brand new. In fact the publisher kindly supplied us with some advanced copies so we can make them available ahead of the official release date. And we want to send it to you to thank you for helping to make A New Beginning available to others here in your community and elsewhere around the country. You're investing in helping others come to know the Lord. One listener wrote and said, So thank you for sending your investment today to A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call us any time 24-7 at 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to Harvest.org. Well next time more from Pastor Greg's message called Evangelism Jesus Style. It's some of the best insight on personal evangelism you'll ever hear. Be sure to tune in for A New Beginning. 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.