A Renewed Focus for Others

We are going to take a week off from our walk through the gospel of Mark. Today, we will be in the first chapter of the book of John, so go ahead and turn there if you have a physical copy of God’s word with you. If you do not, we have some down here in the front for you if you need a copy. Today, it is my desire and prayer that this message kicks off our new year in the right direction. The title of this sermon is a Renewed Focus for others. This is what the gospel message is all about. People hearing the truth of God’s word and turning their life over to him. But it won’t happen unless we, as a church and as Christians, are focused on others.

John 1:35–42 ESV

35 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). 42 He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

Prayer

2024 is gone and we are now in a new year. Tonight, we will begin a bible conference that is focused on us beginning the new year with a renewed focus on our relationship with Christ. This morning, our goal is to renew our focus on others. The Christian walk is not just about our relationship with Christ. It also is about us interacting with others. And the main interaction that we have with others is our gospel influence on them.

This year, our church will celebrate 78 years as a gospel witness in our community. It started with a group of believers who valued prayer. They would gather for a prayer meeting and it eventually led to the formation of a congregation because they saw a gospel need in this community.

I think of some of our senior saints that we currently have and their age. And then I look at our smaller children and think that these children, in 78 more years, could be the senior saints of Immanuel Baptist Church. And this lights a fire under me. Because I want us, as the people of the church today, to leave them a healthy and growing church that is gospel centered and gospel driven.

For this to happen, we must continuously be renewing our focus on the gospel. Scripture teaches us what it looks like for people to encounter Christ, follow him, and then take this focus to others. That is what we see in our passage today.

If you see one thing out of our text today, I want you to see this.

Big Idea: Intentional Evangelism Produces Disciples

We have been saved to live our lives for Jesus. We no longer have our own mission, but the mission of the gospel. Galatians 2:20 “20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

We live our lives through the power of Jesus Christ. This means that his mission is our mission. And this must be intentional. My prayer is that this year, we see people completely shift how they are living their lives to be able to be more intentional with the gospel. Things like deciding how to spend our vacation that we get with work. Maybe frequenting the same store with the same cashier to build a relationship to share the gospel with them. Maybe even throwing a get together with your neighbors to build relationships with them to be able to share the gospel with them.

I want to ask us a question, but I want to preface this question by saying that it is not one that has the intentions of attacking. It has the intention of having a lasting encouragement with you. Because, while scripture does convict, the point of conviction is to encourage and to move us to changing to be more like Jesus. So my question I am asking each and every one of us is…

When was the last time you shared the gospel with someone?

I also want to clarify this as well. Because you might think you are sharing the gospel with someone when in reality you might be sharing some biblical truth but not actually sharing the gospel.

I used to work with a guy that would walk around and tell everyone “Jesus loves you”. To give him credit, he was very well intentioned in doing this and he was actually sharing biblical truth with people, but he was failing to share the gospel.

Well what is the gospel then Pastor David. I am glad you have asked. The gospel has 4 simple parts. If you are taking notes, write this down. I am giving you an easy template of sharing the gospel with someone.

God, Man, Christ, Response

God - We have been created in the image of God. He created Adam and Eve to inhabit the garden of Eden and gave them directions of how they were to live

Man - Adam and Eve decided that they knew better than God. So they broke God’s law by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because of this, they were banished from the garden and their relationship with God was now severed.

Christ - It is only through Jesus that we can be made right with God. Because he is fully God and fully man, he made the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins because we could not pay for them.

Response - God now calls us to repent and believe. To turn from our sinful ways and turn to him and to believe that Jesus died on the cross for us.

This is very simple. This is the gospel. When we share this, we give people to opportunity to hear that they are in need of a savior and that savior is Jesus. When we don’t share this, we are not giving people the opportunity to come to faith.

As I said, our focus should be both inward and outward. Soul growing and soul winning. This week, we will focus on the soul growing but this morning, our focus is soul winning. But I don’t want it to be a focus of just today. I want us to take this focus and make it our theme for the year here at Immanuel. I want us, in 2025, to renew our focus of soul winning so that, this children, in 78 years from now, are continuing it right here at Immanuel Baptist Church. As we go through our text this morning, you will see the biblical case of disciples becoming disciple-makers.

We Tell Others About Jesus

This is the first step in someone coming to faith. They must first encounter Christ. And that is what we see happen in these first verses.

John 1:35 ESV

35 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples,

John the baptist here has a couple of his disciples with him. He is the forerunner of Christ. He paved the way for the ministry of Jesus by calling people to repentance and faith in the coming Messiah.

John 1:36 ESV

36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

As they were there standing there, Jesus walks by. John, who knows who Jesus is, who knows that he is the Messiah that has come to save people, tells them who he is. He says behold, this is the lamb of God. What a description of who Jesus is. Let’s think about the words that John uses to describe Jesus. What if Jesus walked by and he looked at his disciples and said, “hey, you see that guy right there, he loves you”. Does that tell these men anything about who Jesus is.

Part of telling others about Jesus is telling them who he is and what he offers them. John, in the vernacular of the day, tells them this. People in our time and our culture need a little more than being told he is the lamb of God. They don’t know what this would mean like this disciples of John would have. We need to share the full gospel to people.

There are a lot of people out there that think that because they heard someone tell them one time that Jesus loves them and they have said that they believe that, then it makes them a Christian. But this is not the full truth.

When we have a soul winning mindset, we will strike up conversations with people that lead to having a gospel conversation. I don’t want you to get confused by what I am saying about evangelism here. Is there a time and a place and a situation where I believe that it is okay to walk up to strangers and begin sharing the gospel? Yes, but I don’t think that everyone is cut out for something like that. What I do believe is that God has already given us situations where we just need to be faithful in the moment. God has given us regular relationships where all we need to do it see and opportunity and take it by moving a conversation we are already having to a gospel conversation.

(give example)

step 1 is to be faithful by telling others about Jesus

People Follow Jesus

What do you know, when you share the gospel with people, you will see people turn their life over to Jesus and follow him. I say that because on the flip side, if no one shares the gospel, no one will get saved. If we are to build the kingdom and impact our community, we must come to grips with this.

John 1:37 ESV

37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

They heard who he was and what he was going to do for them, and they followed him. This is so important if we are going to renew our focus for others. When we tell people who Jesus is and what is does for them, they see him as he truly is. There are two responses. They will either deny him, or they will follow him. This is it. If you are into statistics, you have a 50/50 chance of seeing someone come to faith when you share the gospel.

But Jesus is not going to have half hearted followers. He is only going to call people who give their lives to him. See, they didn’t just acknowledge him and go back to what they were doing. They followed him.

John 1:38–39 ESV

38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

They wanted to go where he was going. That right there is a sermon by itself. Following Jesus where he is going instead of trying to get him to go where you want to go. Because one of these is following Jesus and the other is not. The point of the gospel is for people to see that their way won’t cut it and that the only true way is by following Jesus.

He reminds his disciples of this on his way to the cross in John 14:6

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is the only way. You don’t get to the father by not following him. It is not possible. These men left lives behind to follow Jesus while some of us are scared to follow Jesus to a conversation with our next door neighbor that we have known for 10 years.

You have heard me say that we have the greatest gift that anyone could ever get. We have the gospel.

Penn Jillette, one half of the famous magician duo Pee and Teller, is a very staunch atheist. But he has a deep respect for Christians who evangelize. “If you believe that there is a heaven and a hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think it is not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward, how much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that”. These are the words of an atheist.

Christians in our culture talk a lot about how dumb it is when Jehovah’s witnesses and Mormons go door to door. While, those false religions are growing and Christianity seems to be getting less and less interest from unbelievers.

We must have a renewed focus for others. We need to stop looking at unbelievers as the enemy and start seeing them as the mission field. When we share the gospel, people come to faith. And then this amazing thing happens when we see people truly get converted and changed by Jesus.

They Tell Others About Jesus

This is how the gospel works. When it found you, it was on its way to someone else. We are all evangelists in a sense. We are all ministers of the gospel. And it is our duty to tell others about Jesus.

John 1:40 ESV

40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

So, if you know who the disciples of Jesus are, you know that these men end up being part of the 12 disciples that were closest to Jesus. And Peter ends up being one of the closest to Jesus out of those even.

John 1:41–42 ESV

41 He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). 42 He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

Andrew follows Jesus, sits under his teaching for the day. Knows that this man has the message that others needs to hear. So what does he do? He goes, finds his brother and takes him back with him to Jesus. He knew that others needed to hear about this message that Jesus was preaching. So it was his duty to make sure that others heard it.

In Andrews time, he could take them to the source. Today, God has commissioned us to be the source of that message. People hear about Jesus, they follow Jesus, and then they go and tell others about Jesus.

Conclusion

If you are a follower of Jesus, then this should be you. I want to ease you somewhat though again. This does not mean that you have to go and walk up to strangers on the street and share the gospel with them. But God has given you relationships with people already. We need to leverage the relationships that we already have for the advancement of the gospel.

Well I don’t know what to say. There are always opportunities to share with someone. You have people all the time telling you about their problems. We have the ultimate solution. And I shared with you a simple 4 part layout of the gospel. God, man, Christ, response. Simple as that.

But I want to take this further. See, I fully believe that the next 12 months are a pivotal time for us as a church. We have seen God tear down some unhealthy things over the last few years and now, we are preparing for renewal. I am working on improving systems here to help to facilitate growth.

Think of the church as a trellis and a vine. The trellis is the systems and structure within a church. And the vine is gospel work. If the trellis is not there, the vine has no where to grow. While at the same time, if the vine is not growing, the trellis is useless. We are working on the trellis but at the same time, we need to see vine growth.

Vine growth is an every single person ministry. So God has laid on my heart a specific focus for the next 12 months that I believe will help to facilitate vine growth.

One A Week

We are going to call it “One a Week”. Let me explain it to you. Each week, we will focus on one person, a different person each week. And our goal will be to have a gospel conversation with that person with the hopes that it will lead to sharing a complete gospel with them.

But it is also a two-fold focus. You have that one gospel conversation with someone that you already have a relationship with. While at the same time, you are building new relationships with people. Maybe you aren’t as comfortable sharing the gospel with someone you don’t know as well. These people are great opportunities to just invite them to church.

So we have 2 invitations each week. We have a gospel invitation and we have a church invitation.

1 Gospel Invitation, 1 Church Invitation

These are very attainable goals and each one of us, doesn’t matter if you are 5 years old or 95 years old, can do this. We can all invite people to God. This is not something that we are talking about today and we are going to forget about. We will be focusing on this each and every week. I am working on a visual tool to help us see our progress in being obedient to inviting people to God.

The church depends on this. Our community depends on this. The kingdom of God depends on this. Let 2025 be the year that we have a renewed focus for others. Who is with me on this journey?