How To Witness

Last week I talked about the church and what was in the churches future. When I spoke to the search committee I asked them what they wanted for the future of the church. One of the members stated that they wanted to see the church grow. They wanted to see more people in the church. How about you, would you like to see more people in church? Would you like to see more people get saved? So how does that happen.

One way to do that it to wait for your preacher to witness to people and to invite people to church. In fact I had the chance to lead someone in the prayer of salvation two Saturdays ago. Of course that was in Hot Springs and that person will probably not be showing up here at the church. I have had the chance to lead several people in the prayer of salvation over my lifetime. Some of them were on mission trips and some of them right there in church. On a good year I might get to pray with four or five different people. I have baptized that many people at one time before.

But lets look at it honestly. Even if I personally led four people to a saving faith in Jesus Christ every year and half of them joined this particular church it is unlikely that it would be enough to grow the church they way you would like the church to grow. There are several new housing developments going in around this area and people are being born every day. How are we going to reach those people?

What if there were 20 of us in the church and we each committed to praying for one person to be saved over the next year and we each prayed to be open to any opportunities that God gave us to witness to someone. That’s pretty scary isn’t it? I am going to see if I can take some of the fear out of it but first lest see what might happen.

First if you have never led someone to Jesus you are in for a feeling like no other. There is a sense of being part of something incredible, of really making a difference in someones life, a feeling of changing the world, or at least one little part of it. Every Christian should experience that feeling at lest once, and if you get that feeling once I guarantee you will want to get it again and again.

But what if half of us brought someone into the church as a result of that effort? I mean getting half the answers right on a test isn’t considered a very good score but what if, over the next year we witnessed to people and invited people to church and out of all the people we invited half of us didn’t succeed but half of us did. We would go from 20 to 30 people and that would help wouldn't it? If those people had families and half of them brought their families we might very well more than double and more importantly we could easily see a life changed for every soul in this church, how much effort would that be worth? How exciting would it be to see people being saved and baptized and growing in Christ all year long? Wouldn’t that be great?

So how do you go about doing that? Lets look at how Jesus told people about the Gospel

john 4:5-30

John 4:5–30 NASB95

So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.

So there is Jesus traveling through Samaria and he does a very ordinary thing. He was tired from walking so he sits down by the well. Now a well in those days is a gathering place for people since that is where you get water. It is much like gathering around the coffee pot or the water cooler in the break room.

Jesus asks a woman for drink and then engages her in conversation about something important to her. In those days a single woman had to depend on her family or some other help to get by. The world was not kind to a woman without a husband. Jesus talked to her about her life. We are all interested in our own lives and our own problems and so Jesus talked to her about what was important to her.

Did you notice that she almost immediately got defensive? Jesus told her about her situation and she began to defend her life and her situation. Did you notice that Jesus did not call her a sinner or condemn her life. She knew her own situation and she knew it was wrong because she immediately got defensive about it. Rather than trying to convince her to clean up her life and get herself right Jesus offered her living water. He offered her what she needed.

Now Jesus wanted her to clean up her life and live according to God’s law and she somehow knew what he expected. He did not have to harp on her sin and he did not try to get her to change before she received the living water that he offered. Jesus merely pointed out her need and then offered her the solution.

Like many people when she didn’t know how to respond she tried to turn the focus of the conversation away from her to some hot topic of the day. You Jews say we should worship at Jerusalem but our ancestors worshiped on this mountain where is the right place to worship? If you witness to people you will find that many of them will try to change the subject and get you off topic by bringing up the hot topics of the day, they may ask about different denominations or why Christians hate homosexuals or about abortion or something else that they think will distract you and remove the pressure from them to make a decision about Jesus.

Jesus did not dodge the question and neither did he argue about it. He said

John 4:23–24 NASB95

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus expressed true concern about her life and lovingly offered her the solution to her sin, he then kept the conversation on the main point and she responded. Not everyone will say yes and that is OK, it is their choice. It is our job to lovingly offer them the opportunity.

what was the result

John 4:39–42 (NASB95)

From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.”

So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days.

Many more believed because of His word;

and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Not only did the woman believe and spread the word to her friends but many others came to believe because of her witness and because Jesus also offered the same living water to them.

So how does this work today? The process is the same and the word is the same just the circumstances may be different.

When I first came to Arkansas I was finishing my masters degree and also starting a new job. As part of my job I traveled to another area to work with a coworker. I stayed in a hotel and at night I would study and read my assignments in the hotel. I was going to dinner one night with a stack of books under my arm to read while I ate and when I came back the clerk asked me what I was reading. I told him school books and he asked what I was studying so I said theology. All of this happened while I walked across the lobby toward my room to get back to studying because I had a lot of reading and studying to do. Then it happened.

He asked if he could ask me a question. He asked what God said about homosexuality. I didn’t want to get into a debate so I said God says quit it. That started a two hour long conversation. He said he was saved but he had these urges and he didn’t know what to do. So we talked and I ministered to him and I hope I helped him.

Another time I was on a disaster relief trip and asked someone about their house and they told me it was their parents house and they were their parents caregiver. We talked about that and we talked about how Christians were often caregivers to the sick and the forgotten and I was able to lead this woman to Christ.

When my wife shops I often go with her and stay out at the car reading. I pop open the trunk of the SUV and sit down in the shade of the door and read. I have had several conversations start because someone asked what I was reading.

I have started conversations about someone’s tattoos, they often have a lot of personal importance to the person who gets them.. I have started conversations about jewelry or fancy cars. Almost anything that I find interesting is a reason to talk to someone. Not all of those conversations end up with a chance to minister to someone or witness to someone but it is surprising how often they do.

What is it that you find interesting about your friends or neighbors or someone on the street? Ask them about it. When I meet people I often ask what they do and if I know something about it we talk about it, if not I often ask what it is or hot it works. It has to be something you are interested in but it is amazing what you can find out just by talking to regular people.

I once talked to a guy while we were waiting in line at a store and found out he was a real rocket scientist. He was visiting family but worked for NASA , something about calculating some part of the chemicals or chemical reactions for the solid rocket fuel used for rocket launches, a real live rocket scientist. So I had to ask, when rocket scientists want to say that something is not hard or complicated what do they say, because the rest of us say well, its not rocket science. He laughed and said that’s what they say too.

Start conversations with people, you might find out that your life gets a lot more interesting if you find out what is interesting about the people around you, mine sure did. If you care about people and you love Jesus you will find ways to introduce them together and some of them will become your brothers and sisters in Christ. The church will probably be selling raffle tickets soon and maybe smoked meet, that will require us to talk to people. Maybe that will give you just the opportunity you need.

However it works out I am sure that if you ask God to give you the chance He will make sure it happens. After all that is what Jesus himself did, and it is what he tells us to do. What could be better than that?