Go

Intro

Good morning Church family.

It is great to be back in the house of the Lord.

We are continuing our current series called REVITALIZATION.

Revitalize - permeate with new life and vitality

The church is to permeate with new life and vitality. Jesus came to bring life and it is through the church that we can continue to bring life to not only our church family, but to our community as well.

There are FIVE FUNCTIONS of the church that we are going to look at during the course of this series that if we put into practice, we will revitalize our church.

Connect

Grow

Serve

Go

Worship

In Acts chapter two we are given a model of how the church is to function.

When the church functions as it was originally designed to function, lives will be changed and the kingdom of God will begin to grow.

Last week we looked at the function of serving. Today I want to look at the next step in those connections which is to Go.

1000 Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching The Starting Point

After one of Dwight L. Moody’s meetings, a locomotive engineer came forward and said he had decided to become a missionary to a foreign country. Moody asked him if his fireman were a Christian. “I don’t know,” was the reply, “I’ve never asked him.” “Well,” said Moody, “why don’t you start with your fireman?”

As Christians, we are called to go. We are called to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Paul tells us in

Romans 10:14–15 (NASB95)

14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!”

Secondhand Evangelism

To those who say they are not a preacher, this word preach means to proclaim openly something that has been done.

In the church world, we use the word evangelize…bringer of good tidings.

When the church speaks of evangelism, which just means to share the Gospel of Jesus, we tend to lean towards world wide missions.

Dan Keck and Kim Ragland both spoke about world missions and this is a good thing. It is a biblical thing.

Acts 13:47 (NASB95)

47 “For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have placed You as a light for the Gentiles, That You may bring salvation to the end of the earth.’ ”

All of us are not able to pack our bags and head out to Brazil or Japan or even Africa. But we can send those like Helio and Ramona and David and Shannell to go and make disciples.

You may not be able to go, but you can help fund those who can. For those that support world missions, you are helping in the evangelism of those countries. You are part of sharing the Gospel message of Jesus to people you may never meet this side of heaven. But because you support world missions, they can come to the saving knowledge of Jesus.

When it comes to evangelism we also tend to think of handing out tracts. Tracts are simply tools that we use to share the Gospel without being personally involved. It is usually a pamphlet that explains the Gospel message.

It is a quick way to evangelize and share Jesus with someone while in the grocery store or restaurant. They even have some that look like money. So when you see what looks like a dollar left on a counter somewhere, you pick it up and read it.

Some do this at restaurants. Here is a DO NOT when it comes to those types of tracts. DO NOT leave a money tract in place of a tip for your server. NOT COOL.

There is a word that I have learned this past week in studying for today’s message. It is called secondhand evangelism.

Secondhand evangelism is what most Christians do. We give to world missions or we hand out tracts and never see or speak to those people again.

Most Christians have no problem with this type of evangelism and are pretty complacent with this way of sharing Jesus. We are willing to go downtown to hand out pamphlets or travel overseas because chances are we will never see those people again.

Relational Evangelism

There is another type of evangelism that I believe is just as if not more important that secondhand evangelism. Don’t get me wrong, we need to do the above. It’s not either or, but we need to do both.

The other type of evangelism is relational evangelism. This is where you build relationships with people before you share your faith with them.

In order to accomplish this type of evangelism, we have to shift our thinking. Remember it is not either or, it is a combination of both.

This means that we as the church are going to have to spend time with those who are not in a relationship with Jesus.

I believe part of the issue is that those who have been raised in the church were taught to stay away from the world. Stay out of the darkness.

But Jesus says the exact opposite.

Matthew 5:14–16 (NASB95)

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;

15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

A light does no good in a place that is already illuminated. (Shine a flash light with lights on. Then dim the lights and shine a flash light.)

We are called by God to go and build relationships with people. When we build relationships with people, it gives us not only the ability, but the authority to speak into their lives about Jesus.

Not too long ago when the Paradise fire took place, my family and I just moved here from Indiana. We had a phone call come in to help the evacuees at Woodson Bridge. Long story short we ended up leading a disaster relief camp and we had hundreds of people coming in needing a place to sleep, food, clothing.

God moved mightily in during that time. I remember a particular religious group came in and began to hand out tracts to those who were going through the clothing we had set out. They were trying to win them to their church (we tend to think that is how you evangelize).

Once I noticed what was taking place I went up to the two ladies and said nicely, “Listen, I get what you are doing. I am a pastor. But right now, these people don’t need literature about your church. They need you to be the hands and feet of Jesus. If you want to help, you can go and sort through these clothes so people can find what they need easier.”

Secondhand evangelism is easy and anyone can do it, but we are called to build relationships with people. In fact we had built some relationships with the people who decided to stay in the great city of Corning and now they come here to church.

Too Busy

I believe the reason why we rely so heavily on secondhand evangelism in our culture today is because we are too busy with our own lives.

Church, we cannot get too busy in our lives where we miss out on building relationships with those who don’t know Jesus.

Luke 19:1–10 (NASB95)

1 He entered Jericho and was passing through.

2 And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich.

3 Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature.

4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way.

5 When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”

6 And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly.

7 When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”

8 Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.”

9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.

10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

What an example of relational evangelism.

In the book of John chapter four, we are given another example of this with the woman at the well. This just goes to show how quickly a relationship can start. Jesus was traveling and came to the city of Samaria called Sychar. While there he sat down by Jacobs well when a woman came up.

John 4:7–12 (NASB95)

7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

9 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.)

10 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.”

11 She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?

12 “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?”

Notice what Jesus is doing. Jesus is striking up a conversation with this woman. Not only did Jews not speak to women, they didn’t speak to Samaritan women. They were looked down upon by society. They were outcasts. They were the least.

I wonder who would be considered a Samaritan Woman in our culture today?

Jesus is building a relationship with this woman. Notice He didn’t hand out a tract to her and said, “Here, this is about me. Have a good day!”

He didn’t hold up a sign that said, “Turn or burn!” “Lie and you’ll fry!” “Tired of being a loser. Turn to me!”

He didn’t leave here a money tract as a tip for getting him some water. None of these. He simply built a relationship with her. Check out what happened.

John 4:13–14 (NASB95)

13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;

14 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.”

He begins to share the Gospel with her. He built a relationship, quickly as it may, in order to share the saving message of the Gospel.

He was able to speak into her life and the result was salvation. She ran back to her city and began to tell everyone to come and see Jesus.

Relational evangelism.

Don’t Miss It

Stand with me today. (Praise team come up)

Church, we cannot miss what the disciples missed.

What is it they missed?

The disciples missed an opportunity.

Listen to Jesus’ response to the disciples who were more concerned about food.

John 4:35 (NASB95)

35 “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.

While the disciples were amazed that Jesus was speaking with a Samaritan woman, no one questioned why. Even though they were amazed, they were pre-occupied with food.

We too can be amazed at what God is doing across the world, and should be. But we cannot get to pre-occupied.

To Jesus, it wasn’t about the food. But the harvest.

The harvest was right there. The woman at the well was the harvest, the people who came out to see Jesus, was the harvest. And the disciples missed it.

Church, outside these four walls is a harvest that belongs to Jesus.

Culture is not coming to church, we have to go to them.

Let’s live out our lives on purpose with the purpose of building relationships with people that we may share the life saving message of Jesus Christ.

We cannot wait for people to come into the church to meet Jesus. We must go to them.

Closing Prayer