Pastor_Transcript2

40 Days of Community

Part 2

Reaching Out Together

Transcript of Message by Rick Warren

October 9-10, 2004

Kurt Open to drama (Intro 3 minutes, 7 minutes per point)

Well good morning everybody! And I want to greet those of you who are participating in worship in the venues. We are glad you are here. Welcome to ‘40 Days of Community.’ Now, during the next 40 days, we are doing two things: deepening the sense of community within our church family, reaching out to the community around our church family. Deepening the sense of love within our church family, reaching out in love to the community around our church family. We’re learning to build stronger relationships in our church and reach out in relationships of love to those around our church. And the reason we’re doing this is because the Bible says we’re better together.

Now last week, I talked about how you were created for five purposes. But those five purposes that God has for your life cannot be fulfilled on your own. You have to have other people in your life. We are wired for relationships. God said it is not good for man to be alone. God hates loneliness. So he wants us to be in community with each other.

Now you don’t need a hundred friends, but you do need three or four or five or six that are really there with you. And the tragedy is most people today don’t have a single intimate friend. They’ve got a lot of acquaintances but they don’t have anybody who’s really looking out for their spiritual growth, who’s helping them, who says, “I’m going to be there no matter what happens in your life.” So we’re going to be looking at how to deepen relationships, and why relationships go bad and how you turn them around.

Last week, we looked at why we need each other, and if you missed that message, I would encourage you to get the tape or the CD because it is foundational for everything we are looking at the next six weeks.

During the next six weeks, we’re looking at first…. I’ll be sharing six messages on deepening relationships so you can fulfill God’s purposes. And then we are going to read this book, ‘Better Together: A Daily Devotional’ and then in our small groups, we are looking at six videos that we are watching and discussing on building stronger relationships.

Now today, we are going to end with the last purpose. We’re going to start with the end. The last purpose for your life is you’re made for a mission, and God wants you to share his love with other people, with your friends, with your family, with the people you work with, and to show his love to those who don’t know Christ yet, who are not in his family. Now why does he want us to do that? Because God wants everybody in his family. God has never made a person he didn’t love. God has never made a person he didn’t have a purpose for. God has never made a person that Jesus Christ didn’t die for. So God wants us to share that good news. But you’re not alone. God wants you to do it with other people.

A couple of verses are there at the top of your outline. In the book of Philippians, Paul says this in verse 27. Let’s read it aloud together, “You are standing together, side by side, with one strong purpose to tell the good news.” Now circle ‘standing together’ and circle ‘telling the good news.’ That’s what we’re looking at today. How do we do it together?

How do I share with my friends that God loves them? And how do I do it in a partnership with other people? How do we do it together as a small group because we are to reach out together?

The next verse of the same chapter says this, “You’ve been my partners in spreading the good news about Christ.” Circle that word ‘partners.’ After the song that we’re going to sing here in just a minute, we’re going to look at seven ways to partner with other believers, with other people in the family of God, to help reach your friends, your relatives, the people you care about most with the good news. And we are going to look at it in a little acrostic. I spell out ‘PARTNER’ on how to partner to share God’s love.

Before you can do that though, you have to make a choice. And you have to make the choice that “I’m going to be unselfish. I’m going to start caring not just about my own life, but I’m going to start caring about other people’s lives. And I’m going to care about telling them the good news.” That’s the choice. Will I choose to do the right thing? Will I choose to be loving? Will I choose to follow what God wants?

There’s a song about that that I want Justin to sing through the first time, and then I want us all to stand and sing it together.

If you are going to fulfill God’s purposes for your life, you have to make the choice. And the choice that says first, “I’m going to choose to share the good news with other people.” Now, during ‘40 Days of Community,’ we have over 3,000 small groups meeting all over Orange County, over 3,000. And we want to hear your stories. In fact, inside your program, there is a space for writing My 40 Days of Community Story”. Anything that happens in your life, in your group or your community, we want to know about it. And we’ve already been getting some reports in.

For instance, we found out that a group of cast members in Disneyland are doing ‘40 Days of Community.’ Now I don’t know if Mickey is involved, but Minnie is definitely involved in ‘40 Days of Community.’ I heard about a coffee shop over here in Rancho Santa Margarita that is doing ‘40 Days of Community’ in the coffee shop for people with English as a second language. I’m not making this up. I heard about a group that is doing ‘40 Days of Community’ on a yacht in a Newport Harbor. That’s the one I’m going to go to because they’ve probably got little hors d'oeuvres with toothpicks sitting in them, and I like those things. I’m not making this up. I know a group that’s actually doing ‘40 Days of Community’ as a group on Amtrak, on the train, going into L.A. every day as they commute together. I actually know a carpool lane small group that they got a minivan that has got one of these drop down DVDs and they all watch it and discuss it going into L.A. every day in their carpool. Hopefully, the driver isn’t watching me but…

How do we use these groups, these 3,000 groups, to reach out and show love to our friends, to our family, to the people we care about that we want so badly to know the love and grace and goodness of God? Well, here’s how you do it. You ‘PARTNER’ together. ‘P’ stands for PRAY TOGETHER.

And the first thing you do is you ask your small group to pray for your friends, for your friends that haven’t stepped across the line, who are still considering the claims of Christ, who don’t really know God in a personal way yet. And you ask them to pray and you pray together. You know, you can’t force anybody to love God, but you can pray for them. And prayer can do what God can do. Prayer can melt a hard heart. Prayer can warm up a cold heart. Prayer can activate and arouse an apathetic heart, and prayer can change a stubborn heart. I have seen it done thousands and thousands of times. Prayer can do whatever God can do.

You see, people can reject your arguments. They may refuse to listen to your logic, but they are powerless against your prayers. And it goes straight to their heart. And the cool thing about prayer is you can do it long distance. It’s like you can pray… My wife right now is in the Philippines, and she spoke in a church there this morning. And in the afternoon, she’s meeting with the president of the Philippines. I can pray for her and send a prayer all the way across the ocean, and boom, it goes straight to her heart. That is the power of prayer. And when you pray together and you say, “These are the people I want you to pray about,” God actually works.

“Well what are we supposed to pray about as a group?” Well one of the things, as in Colossians 3:4, the Bible says this, “Pray for us that God will give us the opportunity to tell people His message.” So we pray for God’s opportunity to share with our friends and our loved ones and people we care about, the great news about God. And as we pray for opportunity, you know what happens? You start seeing them everywhere. Actually, you’ve got lots of opportunities. They are all around you. You just don’t notice them. Will you write this down? ‘Prayer makes me aware.’ ‘Prayer makes me aware.’

When I start praying for my family, then I start seeing the needs of my family. When I start praying for my friends, I start seeing the needs of my friends. When I start praying for my coworkers, I start getting concerned about my coworkers. It changes my heart for one thing.

And so, here’s the first action step is sharing the good news: Make a group prayer list, and then share it with each other. I want you to ask everybody in your small group, “Name one person that you would really like to know the Lord but they don’t know the Lord yet.” And we’ll all share those names, and we’ll make a list of six names or seven names or ten names or whatever. And then, we’ll start praying for each other’s friends or each other’s family, and everybody starts praying. And people you know and love will begin having a lot of people praying for them, and there’s power in that.

Number Two: The ‘A’ in ‘PARTNER’ stands for appeal. APPEAL TO COMMON INTERESTS. Before you can share the good news with anybody, you have to establish a relationship with them. Before you can reach them, you must relate to them. So you find out, ‘What do we have in common? What do we like to talk about? What do we have… common experiences? Common interests? Common needs? Common hurts? Do we like to fish? Do we like to golf? Do we like to cook? Do we like to shop? Do we like to sleep? Do we have kids? Are we interested in soccer, baseball or basketball or whatever?’

You know, here at Saddleback Church, we have over 200 different ministries because people have different kinds of interests. One of our ministries alone, the recreation ministry, has reached hundreds of people for Jesus Christ, simply by playing baseball with people, playing basketball or bowling or things like that.

So the second step, if you’re getting your group to reach out, is to discover the common interests in your group. You’ve got to talk to the people in your small groups and say, “What do we like to do?” and you just make a list of all the things that you find. “Oh, you like to do that? Well, I like to do that to.” And you share it with each other, and then you ask, “Who do we know who’d also like to do that who isn’t yet a believer? Who do we know who is not in the family of God who probably would enjoy going to an Angels game with us? Or which of my coworkers or neighbors would like to do that?” I know of a group where they are all San Diego Chargers fans, and they love football. So what they did, everybody in the group bought a season ticket to the Chargers game and then they all pitched in together and they bought two more season tickets. And every time they go to a game, they take two new people with them to the game. And they just go and they have a good time at the football game. At the end, they say, “Did you enjoy this?” “Yeah, that was fun.” “Well, you know this same group meets on Thursday night over at Bob’s house. Would you like to join us?” “Well yeah, you guys are normal people. That’d be fun.”

And so, you just have fun with them. I know a small group, they do a thing, they like to watch movies together. Now this is different from their small group time where they just hang out. And so, they do a thing called ‘Master Wing Theater,’ and every other Friday night, they get together on a Friday night and they make hot wings and then they watch a movie together. And they just have a good time.

Well see, that’s finding common interests that people would like to do. So you pray together. You appeal to common interest.

The ‘R’ in ‘PARTNER’ stands for REACH OUT IN LOVE. Reach out in love. Why? Because you have to have the right motive in reaching out to your neighbors and friends. Jesus said, “Love you neighbor...” how? As yourself. Yeah. You know the old cliché: People don’t care what we know until they know we care. And so everything we do is out of love.

Well why are we doing this? Why are we even talking about reaching out to our community? Why don’t we just focus on us? I mean we’ve got enough people in our church. Why don’t we just focus on making the love in our church warmer and stronger? Why in the world should we focus out on the community around our church? Why would we do that?

Well, we certainly don’t do it out of guilt, and we certainly don’t do it out of pressure. And we don’t do it out of duty. And we don’t do it to make God like us because He already loves us. We don’t do it because we’re better than anybody else because we’re not. We do it for three reasons.

First, we have the greatest news in the world to share. If I had the cure for cancer, I’d be shouting it in the streets. If I had the cure for AIDS, I’d be telling everybody I could. But I’ve got something better than that: the key to purpose in life and eternal life.

What is the good news anyway? The Bible says we’re to share the good news. What is the good news? Okay here it is in a nutshell. The good news is this: You’re not an accident. You’re not an accident. You were made by God, and he has a purpose and plan for your life. And you were made to last forever. And God wants you to live forever with him in eternity, but he wants you to get to know him here on earth. He knows and loves everything about you, and he wants you to know and love him too.

And Jesus Christ came to earth so you could get to know what God is like, and he died on the cross and paid for all your sins. So everything you’ve ever done wrong is completely wiped out and forgotten and forgiven. And it gives you a purpose for living in the present, and it gives you a home in heaven in the future. Now that’s good news. Where else am I going to hear that good news? I mean it’s not like we’re trying to give people rabies or something. Okay, this is the best news in the world and everybody needs to hear it.

So that’s the first reason why we focus out on the community and not just on us. The second is out of a heart of gratitude. You know if God never did another thing for me, I still owe him my life. Just for the fact that he has forgiven everything I’ve ever done wrong and he’s given me a security of a home in heaven and a purpose for living now and he’s helped me with so many problems in my life. I owe him everything. So I do it out of gratitude.

But then there’s the third reason why we reach out, and that’s because the Bible says, “God is love.” And when God comes into your life, you start loving other people. In fact, I’ll be real honest with you. If you don’t love anybody else, it’s real simple. You don’t have God in your life. You don’t. You may think you do, but you don’t because the Bible says in First John 4, “God is love.” And you can’t have somebody as big as God come into your life and not change you. And all of a sudden, you start becoming less selfish and more loving.

I want to tell you something. If I didn’t have Christ in my life, I wouldn’t be standing here because I was a very selfish person before Christ came into my life. I didn’t care about anybody. All I cared about was me, myself and I, my needs, my interests and the rest of you, forget you. But when God’s love comes into your life, you can’t help but start to love other people. And so we do it out of love.

The Bible says this, there on your outline, “Because we loved you,” that’s the motive for reaching out in love, “Because we loved you, we were happy to share not only God’s good news but even our own lives.” And God says, “When you share with people who don’t know me yet, I don’t want you to share the good news. I want you to share your life with them. If you don’t do both, it’s not really love.”

And you know what the problem is. Sadly today, most people who don’t know the Lord, who are unbelievers, who haven’t stepped across the line, most people, they expect Christians to reach out in judgment, not to reach out in love. There is this idea of, “Oh Christians, they think they are better than everybody else. They think they’ve got all the answers. They’ve got a higher standard of living. They put down everybody else. They look down their noses. They are just looking to judge everybody else.” That’s the common conception, not the idea that we love people because Christ is in our lives.

What is sharing the good news? It’s one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread. That’s it. I’m not any better than anybody else, but we just pass it on. And so, they expect us to reach out in judgment, and a lot of Christians are more known for what they’re against, than what they are for.

Let me show you a verse that may shock you. The Bible says this in First Corinthians. It says, “It’s not my business to judge those who are not a part of the church.” “It’s not my business…” Why? You know, when my kids used to mess up when they were little, I took care of that. When the kids next door, the neighbors’ kids messed up, I didn’t handle that. Why? Not my kids. Kids down the street mess up? I didn’t … They’re not my kids. They’re not in my family. And so the Bible says, “Yeah we’re to take care of each other in the family,” and if one of us gets off, you should come and tell me, “Hey Rick, you’re getting off.”

Well, let me give you a little principle. Never expect an unbeliever to act like a believer until he is one. Hmmm. Never expect an unbeliever to act like a believer because he can’t or she can’t. She doesn’t have the power to change.

You see, there are a lot of things in my life that I wanted to change before I invited Christ in but I couldn’t. There were some habits, some things I didn’t like about myself. I could not change no matter how much I tried. And I kept saying, “Well I’m going to turn over a new leaf. Make a New Year’s resolution, et cetera,” and I had no power to do it.

That’s why it’s really kind of silly to try to make laws to make people act like Christians before they become Christians. It isn’t going to happen. They can only do it with God’s power in their life. So we don’t run around here… When I run around here and I see somebody who is not a believer acting in a way that is kind of foolish or stupid or selfish or dumb, I’m not out judging them. No, I’m called to love them and help them come to know Christ. So then they can have the power to make a change, and I just remember, “Man, that’s the way I was.”

Here’s the action step: Ask God to give you a deeper love for other people. Ask God to give you a deeper love for other people. Now before you turn that outline over, why don’t you write this question at the bottom? ‘How can I pray for you?’

One of the best ways that you can show love to a friend or to a family member or to a coworker who is not a believer yet is to simply ask them, “How can I pray for you?” See, that’s not offensive. Even people who are atheist don’t mind you praying for them, they say, “Sure. If you believe it, I’ll use all the help I can get.” Everybody wants to be prayed for. Everybody does. In fact, they’re grateful for it. You know I’ve asked this question of tens of thousands of people, “How can I pray for you?” I’ve never had a single person in my entire life say, “Oh please don’t. No, don’t pray for me. I don’t need it. I don’t want it.” I’ve never had one person. Why? Everybody wants to be prayed for.

So you just say, “Tell me what’s going on in your life. What’s tough? What are you facing right now that I could pray and ask God for help in your life?” You know, this week our church started during ‘40 Days of Community’ on a giant task that has never been attempted before. We are feeding all 35,000 homeless people in Orange County, feeding them three meals a day for the ‘40 Days of Community.’ And that took tons and tons of foods, and there are two ways you can be involved in it: One of them is you can give if you want to help give. By the way, this week we got an anonymous half a million dollar check for helping feed the homeless in Orange County.

Inside your program, there is an offering envelope. If you’re part of this church family and you want to help on feeding the 35,000 homeless, you can help that way. Or you can help deliver it. And this week as we were delivering it to different places, not just people on the street but you know, a lot of homeless people end up living in these kind of rundown hotels and motels where they live for two or three days or four days, and then they get kicked out and things like that.

And so as we began to deliver it to some of these homeless motels and hotels and things like that, we would deliver the food. We’d give them a Bible. We’d give them a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life” and we would ask them, “How can we pray for you?” And many times, those people would break into tears. And they were actually more touched by the prayers then they were by the food. They said that somebody would care enough… “Nobody’s ever prayed for me in my entire life. Nobody’s ever said, ‘How can I pray for you?’ and thank you.” And they were deeply touched because we were reaching out in love. I want you to watch this video of what happened this week.

[Video played, showing Saddleback members delivering food and praying with recipients. Could be replaced with a testimony regarding the power of offering to pray with someone.]

Pastor Tom:

There is a fourth way that you and I can partner together to let other people know how great God’s love is and that is to TELL YOUR STORY. To tell your story. To do what the Bible talks about in First Peter 2:9, “You are God’s instruments to do His work and to speak out for Him and to tell others of the night and day difference that He has made for you.” You tell your story. In fact, the most effective way to let other people know about the great things that God can do in their lives is to tell the story of what God’s done in your life. That is what makes a difference.

And the great thing about telling stories is you are the expert on your story. You may be an expert on some other things, but I can tell you there is one thing that every one of us across this campus is a world expert on and that is your story, what God has done in your life. And I’ve found over the years that people, they want to hear your story. What they don’t want to hear is your sto-ry! You know what I’m talking about? You know, those stories where they are 15 minutes into the story and they are still five years’ old and your tongue’s hanging out, that kind of a story. People just want to hear the short story. So we owe it to them to take a few minutes to think it through so we can tell the story of what God’s done in two or three minutes, not two or three hours. Tell the story.

Jesus said, “You’re to be my witnesses.” It’s a great picture. When you hear the word ‘witness,’ I think of a courtroom, most of us do. It’s a perfect picture of what God’s asking us to do to make a difference in the world. You’re to be… I’m to be his witness. He doesn’t ask us to be the attorney, arguing the case. He doesn’t ask us to be the judge, judging other people. He says, “I want you to be my witnesses.” And what does a witness do? A witness just says, “Here’s what I’ve seen. Here’s what I’ve heard.” A witness just tells the story of what God’s done in their life to other people. I think a lot of us can think of a lot of different stories that we have, a lot of different things that God has done in our lives.

But one of the things that we struggle with is “How do I get into it? How do I start to tell the story in a natural way where it doesn’t seem fake or phony?” And there is no one way, I have to say to you. It depends on the circumstance. It depends on the situation. But we would like to give you an idea of a couple of pictures of how this can work in a more natural way as a part of everyday life. So our skit guys, Ron and Jeremy are going to come out and give us an example of some ways that this could work.

What’s the best way to get into telling your story? Well two or three ways. One way is to listen for problems that Jesus has helped you with, and when you find a problem that Jesus has helped you with, you went through that to help other people. So you can say, “Look, God helped me with that. Maybe he can help you too.” Watch this.

Chris & Jake Whitten

DRAMA SCENE #1

Setting: Two people (guys or girls) standing in line for coffee. Each scene below is the same scene re-enacted with a different ending. Please feel free to change the jokes in Chris’ first line so that they are appropriate for your own church

Scene#1

Sam: Hey Chris, how’s it going? Sorry I’m late…hey how long have you been standing in this line?

Chris: I’ve been standing here so long that Pastor Tom’s shirts came back in style.

Sam: Wow…that is long. So anyway, sorry I’m late…..I really had a tough time getting out of bed today. Even the thought of coffee couldn’t motivate me.

Chris: REALLY? Wow! It must be serious….what’s going on?

Sam: Well, Erika and I broke up this weekend. And ever since all I can do is mope around the house, eat ice cream and watch movies on Lifetime.

Chris: I’m sorry to hear that…you know I’ve been there. That’s a horrible kind of pain.

Sam: How did you get over it?

Chris: Well, something changed in my life…and it’s made all the difference in the world.

Sam: Really? What was it?

Chris: Well, I started a personal relationship with Christ. Why don’t we forget about the coffee and we can go talk about it…

Pastor Tom:

So you can do that. You can just listen for ways that God has helped you. The truth is every one of us, we have dozens of stories, maybe hundreds of stories of the things that God has done in our lives to make a difference.

There’s another way you can do this. You can also just sort of relate to a current event. Something that is going on that everybody is facing, maybe everybody is struggling with, something you see in the newspaper or on TV. Watch this.

DRAMA Scene #2

Sam: Hey Chris, how’s it going? Sorry I’m late…hey how long have you been standing in this line?

Chris: I’ve been standing here so long that Rick sold another 5 million copies of his book.

Sam: Wow…that is long. So anyway, I’m sorry I’m late…I just waited 20 minutes in line at the gas station to spend $40 to fill up my Geo Metro.

Chris: Yeah, and I read that prices are going to go up again next month…

Sam: Are you kidding me? I can’t take it any more…every time I fill up my tank now I’m doubling the value of my car! What is this world coming to? I’m so stressed all the time….

Chris: Maybe standing in line for coffee isn’t the best way to lower your stress level…

Sam: Well…what should I do? I mean…how do you stay so calm?

Chris: Well, I recommend switching to decaf for starters…..but actually, I used to let every little thing get me stressed too, but then something happened that really changed my life…

Sam: Well I’m open to anything at this point…What changed?

Chris: I committed my life to God, and it’s made a world of difference. Why don’t we forget about the coffee and I’ll tell you my story.

Pastor Tom:

So you relate to a problem that’s in your life that somebody else has faced or a current event or there’s another thing you can do. Sometimes there is someone, you’ve known them for a long time but you’ve never told them what God has done in your life. And you know how you get to a point where you don’t want to tell them because you never have told them, it’s almost embarrassing. What do you do then? A great way to start then is an apology. Just apologize for never having said, “Look, I’ve never told you the most important thing in my life, my relationship with God, with Jesus Christ.” They’re going to give us an example of that.

DRAMA SCENE #3

Sam: Hey Chris, how’s it going? Sorry I’m late…hey how long have you been standing in this line?

Chris: I’ve standing here so long that Rick wrote another book: “The Purpose Driven Work-out”

Sam: Really? [LONG PAUSE] Rick? So anyway, I’m glad you invited me for coffee. I really needed to get out of the house this morning.

Chris: Yeah…Actually I invited you here to talk to you about something. You know we’ve become pretty good friends, so I have an apology to make.

Sam: Oh…don’t worry about that…it will grow back.

Chris: No…no, not that. Actually, there’s something I haven’t told you; something I’ve been keeping back from you.

Sam: You have? Oh, oh is it about those pictures?

Chris: No…wait…what pictures? Never mind…it’s just…when a friend has good news, they should share it. And I haven’t shared this with you.

Sam: Wow…OK. What is it?

Chris: Well, there’s been a change in my life. I’ve come to know Christ and his plan for my life. And it’s made a world of difference. Why don’t we forget the coffee and we can go talk about it?

Pastor Tom:

The point there is friends don’t keep good news from other friends. So, you tell them the good news of what God has done in your life.

Now here’s an action step with this, just a simple action step: Write out your story, and share it with your group. Start there. Start with your group. Let other people that you know, that are close to you know first. Some of you have never even shared the story of what God’s done in your life with someone in your group.

So in your group during ‘40 Days of Community,’ each week have somebody share their story as a part of your group, just take two or three minutes to do that. Or maybe one night you pair up and everybody tells their story on the same night. But some way during ‘40 Days of Community,’ everybody gets a chance to tell their story.

Look at what the Bible says in Psalm 66 verse 16. In fact, let’s read this verse together, “Listen and I’ll tell you what God has done for me.” Do that. First of all with each other and then I encourage you, maybe at the end of ‘40 Days of Community,’ have a party and invite a bunch of people from the community over, other friends that you have. And everybody tell your story that night, just sort of let everybody tell their story. Tell them, “Hey, we want to try this out on you. You can give us your feedback,” something like that.

It is interesting. As you hear several people tell their story, not just you but you and you and you and you, there is power in a group witness. When I can hear the story from a lot of people, it makes the story even more powerful.

The fifth way to help other people experience God’s love is to NURTURE FRIENDSHIPS. Just build friendships with them, so you can build a bridge between your heart and theirs and Jesus Christ can walk across. Now this step takes a little bit more time and effort. It takes a little more energy to build a friendship. You just don’t do it overnight. But the Bible says, in Romans 12, “Be friendly with everybody. Don’t be proud and feel that you are smarter than others. Make friends with ordinary people.”

I said earlier that very few people have a true friend in life, and everybody is looking for a true friend. I’m not talking about acquaintances. But I’m talking about people who are there with you when you need them most. And who do you build those friendships with? The people that are already in your life. They are the people you work with, you go to school with, that you live with, that are down the street, the people on your speed dial on your phone. They are all around you. And as I said, God has put these people in your life specifically so you can share the good news with them. And if not you, who? You are the only Bible some people will ever read. You represent Jesus Christ to them.

Now one of the best ways to build a friendship is a Biblical method that I love and Tom mentioned it earlier. Have a party. Did you know that’s a… Did you know that much of Jesus’ ministry was done at parties? If you go read the Gospels, go read his life, you’ll read that he often did ministry at parties. In fact, he was such a party animal that the religious leaders of that day, the Pharisees, called him a glutton and a drunk. They called Jesus a glutton and a drunk because he was always at parties. Why? Because that’s where the people were that he wanted to share the love of God with.

He even taught his disciples to do this. One of his disciples named Levi, not the jean guy but another guy. His name was also Matthew. Look at the next verse, “In his home, Levi,” also called Matthew, “gave a big dinner party for Jesus and many fellow tax collectors and other guests were also there.” Now why does it say ‘many fellow tax collectors’? Because that’s what Matthew was. He was a tax collector. So he calls up the office, all his buddies, and says, “Come on over.” He had an office party for Jesus. That’s what he did. Some of you could do it right there at the office. I mean, you could get a laptop and put the DVDs on of ‘40 Days of Community.’ At lunchtime, everybody’s got to eat anyway. You might get to start a group at work in your lunchroom.

Now here we are talking about a party. And I would encourage you to have a Matthew’s party. What’s a ‘Matthew’s party?’ It’s no agenda but fun, and you just bring some people over, who don’t know the Lord and who you want to get acquainted with and just build friendship and show love to.

You know, a lot of you guys have barbeques in your backyard. If they are portable, I want to challenge you to move it to the front yard sometime. Start cooking out front, you’ll get a crowd. You know that smell will start wafting down the cul-de-sac and they’ll show up and then, “Hey, have a burger.” You know, I’m just talking about getting people together for Monday Night Football or something like that. In fact, First Timothy 3:2 says one of the qualifications of being a pastor is you have to enjoy having people in your home. Well I do because I’m a party animal.

Christians tend to fall into one of two extremes, either imitation or isolation. Isolation or imitation. On one hand, some Christians become isolationists and they say, “You know what, I don’t want to get polluted by the world. I don’t want to get dirtied by the world. I don’t want to get my life messed up by the world. So I’m just going to isolate myself. And I’ll build a wall and I’ll build my own little culture. And we’ll have our church culture, and our school culture and our family culture. And we’re not going to let anybody get out there in the world because we don’t want to get dirtied by those people.” Well those people are the people that Jesus Christ died for, friend.

So isolation doesn’t work where you just build your own little culture and you stay far away from the world. How are you going to build any friendships that way? That’s wrong.

The other way is the other extreme, which is imitation, which says, “Let’s just be just like the world. We’ll dress like Britney Spears. We’ll trash talk like Britney Spears. We’ll say whatever we want to do. We’ll have the same values, same goals, we’ll be no different from the world.” Well, that’s not what God wants you to be either where you just give in and give in to all of the lowest, common denominator in society. That’s not it either.

The answer is not isolation, ‘Let’s just stay away from everybody who is not a believer,’ and it’s not imitation, ‘Let’s just act like everybody else.’ The answer is not isolation or imitation. It’s insulation and infiltration where the Bible says you are to be salt and light in the world; you are to penetrate the world with the goodness of God.

Let me give you an example. After this service if I go out to lunch at a seafood restaurant and I order sea bass, when they bring it to me, the first thing I’m going to have to do before I can eat it is I have to put salt on it to eat it. Now think about this. That fish has lived its entire life in saltwater. And yet, I have to put salt on it. Now what’s going on here? That fish is insulated.

And if God can take a fish and keep it in brine, in saltwater, its entire life and not have it infiltrate and pollute the fish. Then certainly God can take you or me or any believer and put us in the world and keep us from being corrupted by the wrong values. Does that make sense?

Okay, so you are to be in the world but not of the world. The Bible says this, we used this verse last week but I like it so let’s look at it again, “The Holy Spirit does not want you to be afraid of people but to be wise and to be strong, and to love them and enjoy being with them.” So you nurture friendships.

Now here’s your action step: Bring a friend to your group. Plan a party. During ‘40 Days,’ bring somebody who is not yet a follower of Christ. Maybe they’re considering it. Maybe they are not even considering it, but you just like them. You invite them to your group. You say, “Well I don’t have any friends who would like to come to my Bible study group.” Are you kidding? Are you kidding? I don’t know if you saw the recent Gallup pole where they took a survey and found 34 million American said, “I’d go to church. I’ve just never been asked.” 34 Million, some of those people you work with, some of them live on your block and they are far more willing to come to a small group than you are willing to ask them. But you nurture friendships. You think of a friend, a neighbor, a coworker you care about. Invite them to the church, invite them to your group, plan a party, have a good time, build relationships.

Listen to this story of Jeff Frumm and how his group reached out in love.

[this video could be replaced with a testimony about how reaching out to someone in love resulted in their salvation]

Jeff (Audio from a video played):

About three years ago, we joined a small group and it was a group of likeminded people that really wanted to reach out to others that didn’t know Christ yet. And it was through that group that we were introduced to a couple that had just experienced the tragic loss of their son. They agreed to meet with us on a weekly basis over the summer, and we had several meetings where we had challenged them to look through some material that answered and addressed the major claims of faith in God.

We went through a couple of things, one was ‘Operation Timothy.’ It was a good introduction to the basic beliefs of Christianity. “The Case for Christ”, the book by Lee Stroebel, was a great book to just consider the claims of Christ. And it was through that time, studying the book “The Case for Christ,” that we found out that Cathy had given her life to Christ in a Sunday service that Lee Strobel was speaking at. And we were able to confirm her salvation in that time at our kitchen time, and she had prayed the prayer several times in church and didn’t know if it stuck or not. And it was interesting for us to just confirm to her that she truly was saved at that point. And she looked at Chris, her husband, and said, “Have you prayed that prayer?” And he said, “No, I hadn’t.” And he had some tougher questions.

I invited Chris to coffee. We had been through “The Case For Faith,” I knew all these intellectual questions. They had all been addressed and I just challenged him. I asked him if he was still struggling with any of the intellectual questions. And he said at that point that he could reconcile in his heart all those questions. That he didn’t have it all figured out, but he knew that those weren’t barriers anymore. So at that point, he was really struggling. And I remember asking him, I said, “What would prevent you today from trusting your life with Christ?” And he sat silent for a couple of minutes and it was just an incredible thing to see God drawing him to himself. And finally, I just asked Chris. I said, “Chris, do you want to pray and ask Christ to be your savior?” And he looked at me and just said, “Yes.”

And to me, it was so humbling to be able to see God work right in my presence. I lead him in a prayer that confirmed him accepting Christ as his personal savior, and it was a great moment. I immediately called everyone in our small group because we had all been praying for them for two years, and Chris specifically for the last two months that he would give his life to Christ. And the cheering that went on in our small group was incredible. We know there was a great party that day in heaven, but more importantly, Chris had accepted Christ as his savior.

Rick:

Now Jeff said, “We’d been praying for this friend of ours for two years,” and yet they never gave up hope. They kept expecting God. This is the sixth way to help your friends come to know Christ: EXPECT GOD TO ACT. Expect God to act. I don’t know if you realize this, but God works in people’s hearts when you expect him to do so.

The Bible says, “According to your faith, it will be done unto you.” The greatest pastor of the 19th century was a guy named Charles Spurgeon. He was the pastor of the largest church in the world at that time in London, England. He would often speak to up to about 10,000 people. And many people came to know Christ through his life. And one day, a young man came to him and said, “Mr. Spurgeon, I don’t understand it. Whenever you talk to people about the Lord, they always tend to open up their lives and they tend to accept Christ.” He said, “But you know, when I talk to people about the Lord,” he said, “Nobody’s interested. Nobody comes to Christ. What’s wrong?” Spurgeon says, “Well young man, you don’t expect people to come to Jesus Christ every time you talk about him, do you?” He said, “Well of course not.” He said, “That’s your problem. That’s your problem.”

Now I don’t know how it works. I really don’t, but I do know this. God has a will for your life, and the devil has a will for your life, and you have a free will to choose. And every moment of your life, you’re choosing either God’s will or the devil’s will for your life. And when you choose your own will, well it’s certainly not God’s so you are going in the wrong direction.

Now, I don’t know how it works, but I do know that when I pray and expect people, and pray for people. What happens is it makes it easier for them to choose the right way. God will never force anybody to choose, but it makes it easier. That’s why when I’m backstage before each service, I pray. I say, “God, it’d be a waste of time to go out there and talk to those people without expecting you to do something. So I’m going to thank you in advance that you’re going to change lives. Thank you in advance. I expect it to happen in faith, not because of who I am, but because of who you are.” And that is the faith that God uses in changing lives.

You see very few people come to Jesus Christ the first time they hear the good news. They’ve got to think about it. And that’s why I said we never push anybody, never pressure anybody here. We say, “Take the time to make the right decision.” Because I believe that if a person is intellectually honest, they will make the right decision over time if they consider all the facts.

And so, we say take the time and let them consider. I think about how long Leslie Strobel prayed for Lee Strobel before he became a believer. And she never gave up. She expected God to act, and look how God is using Lee today.

One of the ladies in our church decided to be a 40 day host and host a small group. She had been inviting her dad to church for 15 years and every time he turned her down and said, “No I’m not interested,” he just kept turning her down. Then she invited him and said, “I’m hosting a 40 day group, would you like to come to that?” He said, “Sure I”ll come.” She said, “You will?” He said, “Yeah because you’re leading it. I’d love to come to that.” You never know when a person is going to open up.

Here’s the point: You never give up on anybody. You never get discouraged. Nobody is hopeless. You trust God. The Bible says this in Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Now some of you, you’ve been praying for some time for your boyfriend to become a believer, or your girlfriend to become a believer, or you’ve been praying for your husband or your wife or a parent or child or somebody you care about, a relative, a worker, a good close friend. And you’ve been praying for them, and you don’t see any evidence that two years later that they are any closer in the journey to God than they were two years ago. You just don’t see any difference. Well what you need to do is start praying in faith, expecting God to act. Faith is certain of what we do not see. “God, I don’t see him warming up to you at all in any area of their life. But I’m going to pray and expect that you’re working in their life even when I can’t see it.”

Now again, I don’t know how this works. But you know the story in the Bible…there were four guys who had a friend who was paralyzed and he needed to be healed. And so, they believed Jesus could heal him. So they put him on a mat and they take him to Jesus. And when they get there, they set him down. And Jesus says this, the next verse, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven’” and he healed the guy.

Now notice, he healed the guy on the basis of the friends’ faith, not the guy who was sick. The guy who was sick, he didn’t necessarily have any faith, but it was his friends. Jesus looked at these four guys and said, “You believed I would do it, so I’m going to do it.” And sometimes you have to believe in faith for other people, and you expect God to act.

Now let me let you in on a little secret. It doesn’t take a lot of faith. It just takes a little faith. See you don’t need a lot of faith in life, you just need a little faith. But if you put a little faith in a big God, you’re going to get big results. It is not the size of your faith that matters, it is the size of your God. So you take a little faith and say, “God I believe you’re going to work in my friend’s life and you’re going to bring him to you” and you keep believing and believing.

And anybody can do these steps, even a child can do these steps: Pray for people, appeal to common interest, reach out of love...

A couple years ago at about 10 years of age, Lauren Spragins realized the need in her life, realized she wanted to go to church, looked us up on the internet and came to church. Became a believer and started praying for her parents, and now all of her parents, her family, are all in the family of God and they are actually serving here. I want you to hear her story. Would you give a warm welcome to Lauren Spragins.

Lauren:

Hello, my name is Lauren Spragins and I’ll be sharing my testimony with you. I’m 12 years old and have been attending Saddleback Church for almost five years. I’ve recently moved to Fountain Valley and attend Saddleback every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.

I can remember what it felt like before I had asked Jesus Christ to be the boss of my life. My life felt incomplete and since I hadn’t grown up in a spiritual atmosphere, I had never had a Christ-centered life. One day on a dark night, I had a family crisis. My brother, Jack, almost died. At that point in my life, I knew that it was a sign. A sign that I needed someone, something to grasp, to have, but I wasn’t sure why.

And after many months of searching, I found my answer. I needed to go to church. It was a month before Christmas and I remember writing my Christmas list for Santa. I remember my mom asking, “What was the first thing on my list?” And she asked, “Is it expensive?” “No.” “Hard to get?” “No.” “Then what is it?” “I want to go to church.” My mother seemed startled. She had known that I wanted to go to church, but not that bad. And then next thing I knew, I had a text certificate that read, “You get to go to the church of your choosing and attend as long as your mother allows.”

The next day I got up and looked it up on the computer and found Saddleback Church. I knew it was the church for me. I felt like someone or something was urging me to go to this church, but I didn’t know why.

After attending Saddleback for almost a year and attending Breakout, I knew what I needed to do. I was in the first book and it was around 7:30 and Andra asked us to pray a prayer that would change our lives forever, and I did.

Then the next year 2002, I was baptized on March 17th by Pastor Craig. What does it mean to me to have Jesus in my life? What Jesus means to me now, well there are no words to describe someone so great or pure of heart.

My father got sick in 2000. He was sick for over two years. After many hard days of him being sick and being very depressed, he became an alcoholic. My mother took my brother and I and moved us into my grandparents’ house. My dad was very angry and was becoming more depressed. But with the help of others and a lot of prayer time with Jesus, he is getting better. But I always remember this: Tough times make you stronger as I am constantly referring to Psalms 119 verse 14. It reads, “I rejoice in your decrees as much as in riches.” Basically saying to me that I love what you have given me, O Lord, keep blessing me all the time.

To me, Jesus is an idol. He is a factor. A factor needed in everyone’s life. After asking Jesus into my life, I changed in many ways. I felt complete. Knowing I was in good hands, I would go to heaven. The emptiness I described earlier, well that was completely gone. I became more considerate, loving, caring and an overall better person, and I grew spiritually.

My family now attends Saddleback Church and grows spiritually every day. My family thanks me for leading us to Jesus and that without the help of Jesus, we would have never gotten through my brother’s or my dad’s crisis. But I reply, “I did it for Jesus and he did it through me.”

I now attend and serve at the church along with my family. My dad and I work at the 9:00 service now and attend every weekend. I recently graduated from Breakout last June, and now attend my new C-group. I have friendship and support with my small group that has been able to get me through the last two years that were really rough. I had a great time in June on the mission trip to Mexico where I was able to serve Jesus even more.

Here are a few words that describe Jesus to me: Comfort, acceptance, safety, forgiveness, hope, happiness, love, reassurance and always knowing I’ll have a place in someone’s heart. As I described earlier, to me, Jesus is a factor; a factor that no one should be without. I also have now learned that every tough time makes you stronger. There is nothing more fun or more important to me for that matter than coming to church and/or serving God. I continually pray and hope that my brother and my dad are completely healed. I also hope that I grow spiritually. I have now found one of my lifelong dreams. I now hope to be a pastor in the future. I hope that you have learned that no one should be without that main factor in his or her life, and I urge you to take the prayer and ask Jesus into your life. Thank you.

Rick:

You know I got to thinking that if Lauren married one of my boys, she’d be Lauren Warren. As I listen to Lauren speak, I was thinking of that verse where Jesus said, “Unless you become as a child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” What in the world did he mean by that?

Well, he meant that we must love Jesus Christ with childlike simplicity and sincerity, with simple sincerity. And we must trust God and trust Jesus with simple faith. And we must share Jesus with simple enthusiasm. That’s what it’s all about.

Now here’s the last way to help bring your friends to know the lord. ‘R’ is REPRESENT CHRIST WITH YOUR LIFE. Represent Christ with your life. The Bible says, “Whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus.” Whatever you do or say, we need audiovisual Christians, who walk the walk and talk the talk. They do it and they say it. They live it and they share it. They communicate it and they demonstrate it. They are show and tell Christians. And you need both. You need to live it in your life, and you need to share it with your mouth.

And the Bible is very specific about this. First Thessalonians 4, “Do all you can to live a peaceful life. Take care of your own business. Do your own work. If you do, people who are not believers will respect you.” The fact is, I’ll say it again, God specifically put people in your life, and you are God’s representative to them. And if not you, who? God put you there. Why would he put two there? He put you there to share with your relative, your loved one, your friend, your coworker. How will the people know? How will the people know unless we tell them?

Your friends who need the Lord, who need to be shown how to get to heaven… God isn’t going to write it in the sky for them. He’s not going to send them a telegram. He has sent you. He has sent you to tell your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your family, whoever. He sent you.

Now you heard me say before, that the most dangerous prayer you could pray is two words, “Use me.” I dare you to pray it during the next 40 days. “God, use me. Use me to show your love to people who don’t know you love them. Use me to show your purpose to people who don’t know that you have purpose for their life.”

God has given this church a heart to change the world. We intend to change the world with the love of God. But it starts in our own community, in our own small groups with those around us whom we know and we love, and they are not going to know unless we show them.

So here’s my challenge to you: If you’re in a small group, and if you’re not, you need to get in one this week, but if you’re in a small group, make sure that at least one person in your group is still on the journey. That they haven’t stepped across the line yet. Make sure there is somebody in your group who has got some questions, who is a seeker, who is going, “Sounds good, sounds logical, I need to check it out a little bit more. I’m interested in this Christian life thing but I need to know more. I need to know.” Fine. This is the place. This is the church to be if you’ve got questions. And make sure somebody like that, who’s a friend of yours, is in the group. And then together, take these seven steps of love and pray in faith that God will use your partnership to reach one more for Jesus in the next 40 days.

Imagine if every group in our church had the privilege of helping one person step across the line. At the end of 40 days, there would be 3,000 more people headed for heaven than there are right now and you could be a part of that. Let’s bow our heads.

Father, you have given us a mission in the world to share your good news and your love with other people. Thank you that we don’t have to do it alone. Thank you that right now as we share, you’re going to give us your words and your love for others. And I pray that you will raise up an army with a heart to change the world.

Now you pray. Say, “Dear God, I realize that you’ve put specific people in my life because you want me to share your love with them. Today I accept my mission. I want you to use me. Help me to be concerned about people around me who don’t know you. Help me to take these seven steps of partnering with my small group. I realize that they are not going to know unless we show them. And help me to remember that no one is hopeless and nobody is beyond reach of your love. And the people that I think are so far from you, really your love is still farther and can reach out to them. So in faith, I ask you to help our group reach one more for Jesus during the next 40 days. In your name, we pray. Amen.”