Blessed TO BLESS

Blessed to be a blessing: A 5-week study on Evangelism

A 5 week study on Evangelism

A 5 week study on Evangelism

It will require focus, time, money, self sacrifice, humility, discomfort and courage. Our entire church family will be doing this…

What is the approach? BLESSING! So yeah I may have overstated the complexity, but it will cost the things I mentioned.

Blessing is such a significant part of the Bible that it should be our top priority daily…that is to be a blessing to others.

Back in

Genesis 12:1–4 NIV

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.

…God laid out a promise to Abraham.

…God laid out a promise to Abraham.

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

In short, God blessed Abraham to be a blessing and since he is the father of our faith it is our mission as well. Jesus’ mission was very clear…reach, restore, reproduce and release

Jesus’ mission

Reach – reaching people far from God. About 72% of the people in the TC area will not be in church this weekend and most are far from God. There are over 1 million people from Jesus said to “Go into all the world”

Matthew 28:19 NIV

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

and we are accepting that challenge to “go” and be a people who

will reach people who are far from God. On any given Sunday we have

• Restore – restore God’s dream for this world. As Christ-followers we can no longer just talk about poverty and shake our heads at issues of injustice, we must take action to address those issues. Jesus said, “God has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.”

Luke 4:18 NIV

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,

This was a part of Jesus’ mission and it must be a part of our mission; to restore God's dream for the world.

• Reproduce – reproduce the mission in others. Because Jesus vision was to see his mission spread from "Jerusalem...Judea...Samaria... and to the ends of the earth"

Acts 1:8 NIV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

to fulfill that vision we must not only do the mission but we must apprentice and reproduce the mission in

others.

• Release—we release people into mission because Jesus’ calls his followers to be fishers of men and sends them out on his mission “As the Father sent me, so I send you”

John 20:21 NIV

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

).

I read a story about 2 mission trips that had distinct approaches. The first we will call the converters…these went with the express purpose to tell people how they could be saved! Excellent…extremely important. The other group we will call the blessers…they went to see how many people they could bless! They’d say “I’m just here to bless whoever comes my way.” OR “I just want to be a blessing to the people in my community.”Over a couple of years the results came back and as you could probably guess both groups reached people, but the blessing group wound up helping 50 times more people connect with Jesus than the converting group.

I read a story about 2 mission trips that had distinct approaches. The first we will call the converters…these went with the express purpose to tell people how they could be saved! Excellent…extremely important. The other group we will call the blessers…they went to see how many people they could bless! They’d say “I’m just here to bless whoever comes my way.” OR “I just want to be a blessing to the people in my community.”Over a couple of years the results came back and as you could probably guess both groups reached people, but the blessing group wound up helping 50 times more people connect with Jesus than the converting group.

If we are going to be disciple makers it will begin with blessing…

We are blessed to be a blessing. Who will you bless today, then who will it be tomorrow?

This sermon series will use the word BLESS as the outline

The B stands for… B - Begin with prayer!

hand out insert…read through…

If you think about Jesus’ ministry and mission…it began after 40 days of prayer and fasting…then if you look and see what he did immediately you get a little insight…he chose the disciples…tax collector, fishermen, political extremist and pretty much nobodies…

If we do not begin with prayer, chances are we will miss our opportunities to reach people, restore people, reproduce disciples and release people to fulfill the mission to which God has called them.

Not long ago a man was walking through this kind of teaching and he began to pray daily for opportunities to share…one particular day he was at the mall and believed the Lord wanted him to tell a man sitting on a bench that Jesus loved him…

God’s certainly had something for that seated man…but it was also for the one who spent time in prayer and then obediently followed the instructions received in that pray. Often what God wants us to do requires a bit of courage, focus and discomfort…

Think about how out of the ordinary it was for Jesus to go to the woman at the well…

L - Listen with care.

Being a caring is all about LVV

Look people in the eye

Give the Visual approval

Give them Verbal approval

Asking great questions: Name, where they live, about family, where they work or go to school, what are their hobbies or interests, where they have traveled, their ideas, THEN...

BGU!

but also as you are listening prayer requests may be evident…it is all about humbling ourselves and thinking about others.

This is about really truly coming alongside and caring enough about what you hear to actually do something

The rest of this message is a working time. Now if you do not have a relationship with Jesus just yet do not worry, only the first part is for

those who are in a faithful relationship with Him, but the second is good for every relationship.

You have been blessed to be a blessing. The next time we gather let’s have testimonies of blessing others…