The Refreshing Power of Sharing Your Faith: The Importance of Evangelism

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. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out when we share the hope of the Gospel, we'll find that we live more hopeful, fulfilled lives ourselves. As you give to and serve others, you yourself will be replenished and refreshed. Whatever we've accumulated in life, we can take it with us when life is over. It's like a game of Monopoly, the cash, the houses, the hotels.

When the game is over, it all goes back in the box. But there is one exception, people. We can take people to heaven with us. The Lord invites us, urges us to share the Gospel and invite them to Christ. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie offers good encouragement as a part of his encouraging series called Refresh. We all know as Christians we're supposed to share our faith.

You've probably heard of the Great Commission. In case you don't know what it is, it's found in two Gospels, Matthew and Mark. Mark's version has Jesus saying, go into all the world and preach the Gospel. Matthew's version is, go into all the world and 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 always, says our Lord.

The Great Commission. We know we're supposed to do it, but frankly, most of us don't. Studies have shown that 95% of Christians have never led another person to Christ.

Only 2% of churchgoers invited an unchurched person to church in the last year, and 59% of all Christians say they seldom or never share their faith with others. Honestly, we're a little bit like Jonah. By the way, we're going to be looking at Jonah chapter 3, so turn in your Bibles there. And we talked about Jonah a little bit in my last message, which was titled, The Refreshing Power of Revival. But we can be like Jonah.

We don't want to bother ourselves with the needs of others. We'll get into this a little bit more in a few moments, but Jonah was called to go preach to these people who lived in Nineveh. And Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. And the Assyrians were the enemies of the Israelites. And as a patriotic Jew, he didn't want to go preach to his enemies.

He didn't care about them. And we can be this way as well. If we're brutally honest, we'll say, I don't really care that much about nonbelievers. And I have what I need, and I don't want to share it. Hey, this goes back to our childhood, when we were taught to share.

We would be happily playing with a little toy as a baby or a toddler, and then another child's introduced into this setting, and someone says, share your toy with your cousin or your little friend, and you start fighting over the toy. We don't like to share. Often as Christians, we hoard the truth. But listen, the gospel by design is meant to be shared, not hid. And sometimes we're hoarders of truth instead of sharers of hope. Sometimes we become so inward in our focus, we miss this great truth. As you give to and serve others, you yourself will be replenished and refreshed. Jesus put it this way. He said, give and it shall be given to you, pressed down, shaken together, running over.

And with the same measure you give, it will be given back to you. Listen, the Bible says that God is looking for people to show Himself strong on behalf of. He's looking for someone, well, like you, who will actually say, use me, Lord. I'll go where you want me to go. I'll say what you want me to say. Listen, will you be that person? If so, a wonderful adventure awaits you. I believe that sharing your faith can be exciting, joyful, and dare I use the word, fun.

Yes, you heard me right. And Psalm 126 says, those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying their sheaves with them. You've heard that old song, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. That's what that's about. You go out with sadness, concerned for people that don't know the Lord, but you come back with joy because people have come to Christ. Jesus said, there's joy in heaven over one sinner that comes to repentance.

And C.S. Lewis pointed out, quote, joy is the serious business of heaven, end quote. Jesus said, it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. And that word blessed is interchangeable with the word happy.

So you could translate it as follows. It's a happier thing to give than it is to receive. And that is certainly true when we're sharing the message of the gospel. I already pointed out that there's joy in heaven every time a person puts their faith in Jesus Christ. And if there's joy in heaven because of that, there ought to be joy on earth and in our hearts if we had the privilege of playing a role in that as well.

Listen. Next to personally knowing the Lord, the greatest joy I know is bringing others to Him and then watching them grow and be transformed. 3 John 1 says, I have no greater joy than to hear my children are walking in truth. Joy. There's joy in telling people about Jesus and seeing them grow in Jesus. The apostle Paul wrote to the believers there in Thessalonica about the great joy he was experiencing as he watched them grow spiritually. And he said in 1 Thessalonians 2 19, what is our hope or our joy or crown of boasting before the Lord Jesus at His coming?

Is it not you? You, Paul writes, are our glory and our joy. Listen to this. The happiest Christians are the evangelistic Christians. Let me say that again. The happiest Christians I know are the evangelistic Christians and the least happy Christians I know are the nitpicky kind. They're arguing over theological minutia and never telling others about Jesus. It was the old country preacher Vance Havner who once said, if we're too busy using our sickles on each other, we're going to miss the harvest.

End quote. Yes, there is a happiness that we are missing out on if we're not sharing our faith. You know, they have done studies and found that when you help someone else, there is an actual release of endorphins. They call it the helpers high, an actual euphoria that one can experience by helping a person. Now that's true in just helping in general, but when you're pointing a person to Christ and they would come to believe in Him, that's the greatest joy of all. You know, as Christians sometimes we find ourselves down and depressed and lethargic. We don't understand it because we're reading our Bibles, we're praying, we're going to church, we might even be in a small group, but there's a sort of depression that is set into our life and we wonder why. Maybe it's because you need to start thinking of others instead of just yourself. Maybe this is not all about you.

This is about you getting grounded in your faith and then helping others to come and believe in Jesus. I have a 10 step cure for depression. Now before I give it to you, let me just say I acknowledge the reality of clinical depression and I know some people have a serious struggle with this.

I'm not really talking about that. I'm talking about the depression that many people have in life. So I have a 10 step cure for depression.

So you might want to write this down. 10 steps. Step number one, find someone who has greater needs than you and do something for them. Find someone who has greater needs than you and do something for them. That's step number one.

Step number two is repeat step number one nine more times. Get it? The idea is look at the needs of others and share Jesus with them. You see Satan wants to steal your joy as a Christian and he wants to keep people from coming to Christ. He doesn't want you to hear what I'm saying to you right now because it's a direct threat to the kingdom of darkness. The devil's unhappy he lost you. He's unhappy that you transferred your citizenship from his kingdom to God's kingdom. He's unhappy you changed your eternal address from hell to heaven.

But I'll tell you what, if you want to make him really unhappy, start trying to bring people out of his kingdom into God's kingdom. But listen, God wants us to do this. He wants us to share our faith because God chooses to reach people through people. In fact we're told over in Romans 10 14, how can they call on him unless they believed in him? How can they believe in him unless they've heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?

How true. Now look, God could do this work without us. He could roll away the heavens and poke his face through and say, hello humanity, I'm God and you're not.

Believe in me right now. But no, God chooses to reach people through people. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. Hearing from listeners who've been impacted by Pastor Greg's teaching in God's word is encouraging.

Listen to these comments from one of our listeners. Pastor Greg, I wanted to reach out and let you know how much I appreciate your teachings and how the Lord uses you to give hope and understanding. I'm a combat veteran who served in Afghanistan right after 9-11.

I've really been struggling with how the situation in Afghanistan unfolded. My anxiety and PTSD has been really aggravated recently. I say this to thank you for helping me during this extremely difficult time with your teaching from God's word. God has given you an amazing gift to be able to explain and to teach his word in a way that I can understand it and apply it. Thank you for pointing us to the cross and helping me personally to stay focused on the blessed hope that Christ is coming back and all things will be righted. How have these studies in God's word helped you? If you have a story, why not call us and share it with us? Call 866-871-1144.

That's 866-871-1144. Well, we're considering the story of Jonah today, and Pastor Greg points out the lessons it teaches us about the importance of evangelism. Now when we think of the story of Jonah, as I pointed out last time, we focus on the whale. But the book of Jonah is not about a whale. There's only two verses that deal with that crazy sea monster he got swallowed by. The book of Jonah is a story of a massive revival that came about through the efforts of one man.

And that man was Jonah. He was called to preach to Nineveh, which was a great city. By the way, the population of Nineveh was around 300,000. It might have been a little smaller, but that was a mega city back at that time. The reason the population was so high is because it became the capital of Assyria. There was a magnificent palace built there. So it was a very, very large city of its day.

300,000 strong. It was a great city, we read in Jonah 1-2. But Jonah said, I don't want to go preach to that great city. So then we read in Jonah 1-4, God sent a great wind. And then that wind brought a storm and Jonah was ultimately swallowed by a great fish. Jonah 1-17.

But the ultimate story of Jonah is about a great God who showed great love to a lost city like Nineveh and offered them his forgiveness. If we miss that, we've missed the whole point of the story. So I heard the story of a police officer who pulled over some guy who had two penguins in the backseat of his car. The officer said, sir, I don't know if you know this, but penguins are an endangered species.

You can't drive around with penguins in your car, so take them to the zoo. And the man said, I will officer. The next day the officer saw him driving around with the penguins again, but this time they were wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses. The officer said, excuse me, I told you to take those penguins to the zoo yesterday. The man said, I did.

And now we are going to the beach today. Yeah. I think he kind of missed the point of what the officer was trying to say. And we can very easily miss the point of the book of Jonah. God turned around 300,000 people through one man.

How was he able to do this? Because you and I, well, we want to be the Jonah in our neighborhood. The Jonah in our family. The Jonah in our sphere of influence.

Hopefully mine is being swallowed by a sea monster. Okay. So if you're taking notes, here's point number one. It takes a changed person to change other people. It takes a changed person to change other people. It started with Jonah himself. Of course, he was swallowed by maybe the whale or whatever that creature was. And it was in the belly of that whale that Jonah had a personal revival.

It was there that he repented of his sin and recommitted himself to the Lord and was willing to do what the Lord had called him to do. And so what happened? The whale cruises up to the beach there on Nineveh. I wonder what that was like. You're just sitting out on the beach, catching some rays, watching the surf. And all of a sudden you see this large object coming toward you. The Ninevites might have stood up.

What is that? It's a whale. And the whale pulls right up in the shore and opens its mouth and vomits. The Bible says he vomited. Jonah. Out comes Jonah. Boom.

Ta-da. I wonder what he looked like. His skin was probably bleached white from the gastric juices of the sea creature.

He probably smelled worse than anyone you've ever smelled before. And he has a message, 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Wow. What a story this is. But listen, Jonah was the right man at the right place at the right time. I wonder if you know somebody right now that the Lord has been nudging you to talk to. You know it's interesting for me because sometimes they'll be out and about and I'll just see someone. And I just, the Lord, I don't know how to explain this but just in my heart I sense I should go start a conversation with them. And I don't know what to say to them exactly. I don't know how the conversation will go. I don't know anything about them but I've sensed, I've come to realize that I need to respond to those promptings of the Holy Spirit.

That's how it starts. It's just a little nudge, a little prompting, a little direction. Look at that person right there.

Why don't you engage that person in a conversation? Did it ever occur to you that God has placed you right where you are right now to reach certain people? One of my favorite Bible stories is the story of the beauty queen Hadassah. It's found in the book of Esther. The king of Persia wanted a new queen. So he had this beauty contest and Hadassah, a very attractive young Jewish woman, entered the contest. She had been raised by her uncle Mordecai.

Her father had died. And incredibly she won the beauty contest and she became the queen of Persia. It's like a fairy tale, right?

Her prince comes and now she's the queen. And if it was a fairy tale it would end with these words, And they lived happily ever after. But this isn't a fairy tale. This is a Bible story which means it's true. It actually happened because a villain enters the story. More sinister than any villain you've seen in any child story with a plan to literally exterminate the Jewish people. And meanwhile Hadassah, also known as Queen Esther, was oblivious to what was going on. The king signed a decree that every Jew would be put to death. But Esther was living in the lap of luxury.

You know, she was being pampered there in the palace and she knew nothing of the plight of her fellow Jews. So one day her uncle Mordecai shows up outside the walls of the city. And he's calling out for Esther.

Someone says, I think this guy is related to you. She goes, oh send him some new clothes. And he didn't want new clothes. He wanted her attention. And I love what he said to his niece. He says to her, if you keep quiet at a time like this deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place. But you and your relatives will die. Then Mordecai makes this very well known statement.

But who knows? Perhaps you were made queen for such a time as this. In other words, he's saying, Esther, this is your wake up call. This is why you are where you are. You're not there by coincidence. You're there by providence to save your people. And if you don't do it, God will find someone else.

So did it ever occur to you that you are where you are because God wants you there? See the problem is, is when we become Christians we want to remove ourselves from bad influences. Stay away from ungodly people who might tempt us to do ungodly things.

And that's good. But we have to be careful that we don't lose contact with nonbelievers. We can sort of retreat in what we might describe as a Christian bubble. We listen to Christian radio. We buy our car from a Christian car dealer. We watch Christian movies. And we've boycotted so many stores there's none left to go to anymore.

We're sort of isolated all by ourselves. But listen, Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. So I have to go. I have to leave my comfort zone. My safety zone even. Jesus did not say the whole world should go to church.

But He did in effect say the church should go to the whole world. So you need to go to where people are. To that person in the restaurant that's serving you. Tell them that God loves them. Make sure you leave a tip.

Don't be a cheapskate. Nothing worse than sharing your faith with a waitress or a server and then not leaving them a very generous tip. But what about that person?

You're pumping gas around the other side putting gas in their car. There just might come a moment for you to start a little conversation. Start by praying and ask the Lord to lead us. Because you are where you are for such a time as this.

Now listen to this. God does not need you to accomplish His work. God can reach people without you but He would rather reach people with you and through you.

Again Mordecai said to Esther if you keep quiet at a time like this deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place. So seize the moment. Pastor Greg Laurie encouraging us to seize the moment. To take advantage of those opportunities God gives us to share the hope of Christ.

Good encouragement today here on A New Beginning and there's more to come from this message. A study called The Refreshing Power of Sharing Your Faith Part 1. Well Pastor Greg I know you really like contemporary Christian music. I know you listen to it quite a bit. And you were there back when contemporary Christian music was first born. They called it the Jesus music. You were a tuba player weren't you?

Never, no. I thought I remember seeing you trying to fit that into your corvair. Oh that was another guy with lung here and a beard back in the day, yeah. I don't think there was a lot of tubas in the music back then.

Maybe in the brass section but yeah so I did see it happen before my eyes. And you know I've always been a lover of music. I grew up in music of the late 60s and 70s and so you know I listened to the same bands you listened to. And after I became a Christian I thought well I guess that's over with. I'm not going to listen to those bands anymore. I guess I'll just listen to choirs.

I'm not really sure. And so I went to Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa and a whole movement was happening called the Jesus movement. And along with that movement was a whole new form of music. Later to be called contemporary Christian music. But back then we just called it Jesus music. And what I loved was these were guys like me that played the kind of music I like to listen to. But it had lyrics that honored and glorified God and proclaim the gospel. Now fast forward to today and the music has changed and the styles have changed.

But the message is essentially still the same. And this music is so important it's become a whole industry. It touches thousands of people around the world. But here's a book that tells you how it all got started. It got started in a spiritual awakening. And the title of this book that we want to offer to you for your gift of any size is simply the Jesus music.

And by the way there's a documentary film by the same title that has come out from my friends the Irwin brothers at Kingdom Productions. So we want to take this beautiful hardbound brand new book and offer it to you for your gift of any size. Whatever you send we'll use it to continue our ministry and then you'll have your own copy of the Jesus music to enjoy. 1-800-821-3300 or call 1-800-821-3300. We're here to take your call 24-7.

That's 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to Harvest.org. Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here encouraging you to join us this weekend for what we call Harvest at Home. It's worship. It's a message from the word of God.

You can watch it with your family in your front room or you can watch it on the go on your tablet on your phone or your computer. Take it with you. Take the word of God with you and join us for Harvest at Home at Harvest.org. Well next time Pastor Greg highlights a number of specific lessons we learn from Jonah's outreach to the city of Nineveh. Good information is coming. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie. This is the day, the day when life begins. 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.