FIND, TELL, BRING                                                                                                   March 18, 2007 

John 1:35-51

Audio

The Mission of God is more than about Thailand or China or Cuba or Africa, places we heard about during our Annual Missions conference the last two Sundays and the week in-between. The Mission of God is just as much about the Spokane Valley as it is about Swaziland. But what is the Mission of God?

 Jesus summarized it when He said “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10).  Why did God send Jesus to this earth? John 3:17 says “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”

God sent His one and only Son so that people could be saved from the penalty of their sin, to seek and to save the lost – the lost of China, yes, but your lost neighbors as well.  And that’s what I want to talk about this morning.

Billy Graham has long used a program, a tool, in connection with his crusades. Back when I committed my life to Jesus in one of his early crusades in Seattle in 1951 he didn’t yet have this tool. It’s called “Operation Andrew” and it is based on the passage that we are going to look at today.

In Operation Andrew you receive a card and write the names of up to 10 of your lost friends that you are going to pray for in anticipation of inviting them to go with you to the crusade. We have used similar cards or sheets in preparation for some of our outreach events.

Let’s look at this passage in John 1 (read v.35-51)

First of all, look at who the 2 main characters (other than Jesus) are: Andrew and Philip. It says they were disciples of John the Baptist. We know that Andrew was a fisherman along with his brother Peter, but what about Philip? It says he was from Bethsaida. The Hebrew prefix “beth” means “house of.” So we have Beth El, the House of God, Beth Shalom, house of peace, Beth Lehem, the house of bread. Beth Saida means “House of Nets” because that’s where so many fishermen lived, so it’s likely that Philip was a one too.

So these are just two ordinary working stiffs. They are nobody special in the eyes of the world, or even in their own eyes.

They have not been educated beyond the basic Synagogue education that all boys of that day would have had. They had never been to Bible School; they had never had formal training in personal evangelism. They had not been through a 13 wk. course in Friendship Evangelism, or a 4 week course on how to use the Four Spiritual Laws or Steps to Peace with God, or training in how to witness using the 10 Commandments.

What they’d had was an encounter with Jesus. Not a long-term relationship; just a brief encounter. But it had somehow been a life-changing encounter.

Andrew and whoever else it was with him, spent a whole day with Jesus. I personally believe that other person was Philip. If when we get to heaven we get to watch re-runs, that day is one re-run that I would love to see. What did they talk about that so captivated Andrew? And notice what he did: he went and found his brother Peter. That’s why Billy Graham’s outreach tool is called “Operation Andrew”.

Look at verses 41 & 42: Andrew found his brother Peter, he told his brother about Jesus, and then he brought his brother to Jesus.

Look also at verses 45 & 46. Philip does the same thing: he found Nathanael, he told him about Jesus, and then he brought him to Jesus. 

And that’s the pattern that God wants for every one of us as a Christian in our relationships with people around us: find, tell, bring.

We do ourselves a disservice when we imply that witnessing is so complicated that we have to be extensively trained before we can engage in it. These men were not trained, and they would not have even called it witnessing. They were just excited about their encounter with Jesus and wanted others to meet Him also.

So the first question is: have you had an encounter with Jesus? You have heard a lot about Him from others, and read a lot about Him. But have you personally met Him?

That would have been easier to answer in Jesus’ day, wouldn’t it? He was in a physical location in a physical body. If someone asked: “Have you met Jesus?” you knew that they were asking if you had physically walked up to Him and shaken His hand, or bumped His fist or something like that.

But what does that question mean today in a practical sense? Today when we talk about someone having an encounter with Jesus we are usually talking about a spiritual encounter. There is something in your spirit that has responded to His Spirit. It’s hard to explain in a rational way, but a lot of spiritual things are beyond the realm of the intellectual.

But there’s another sense of encountering Jesus, and that’s encountering Him in other people. We’ll talk more about this in a few minutes, but as the family of God, Jesus lives in each of us. And when people encounter us as Christians, they need to be also encountering the Jesus Who lives in us. We’ll come back to this.

Who did Andrew and Philip find? Andrew found his brother; Philip found his friend. They didn’t go door to door trying to find strangers who would come with them to Jesus. They started with their web of relationships. Jesus preached to strangers, and talked to strangers, and so did the first followers of Jesus as time went on. But they started here with people close to them.

Who is it that God would have you to find, so that you can tell and bring? I can’t tell you that, but God can. Why don’t you begin to ask Him and see if He will show you who to go and find.

Next Andrew and Philip told about Jesus. That’s been the scariest part for most of us. “I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know what to say. I’m afraid they will ask me why innocent babies suffer if God is so good and loving, and I won’t know what to tell them.” So even thought we know people whom we would love to tell about Jesus, we keep quiet.

Neither Andrew nor Philip said very much. Basically they said: “We have found the Messiah.”  They didn’t tell people they were sinners and in need of a Savior; they didn’t tell them the steps to salvation; they didn’t tell them a prayer to pray to invite Jesus into their heart. They simply said: “We have met Someone Whom we believe is the One we have been looking for for a long time.”

They told of their own experience with Jesus and the conclusion it had led them to. And any one of us can do that if we will just take a bit of time and think that through. What has your experience been with Jesus, and what has your experience led you to believe?

We don’t read anything about Peter’s response to what Andrew said, but we do with Nathanael. And his response was negative. But in both cases what happened next was the same: they brought them to Jesus.

As I said a few minutes ago, what they did was physically accompany them to a physical place where a physical Jesus was residing, the place where they had spent the day talking with Him. Bringing people was simple and straightforward – you went to where He was.

Have you ever looked at some of the “Where’s Waldo” pictures? (graphic) This is a really simple one. The more complex have hundreds of people and hiding somewhere in the midst of them is Waldo. And the task in each picture is to find Waldo. And that’s how some people see this task of bringing people to Jesus. Just where is Jesus?

“Since He is Spirit rather than body down here on earth right now, where do I take people to have them meet Jesus? I’m not sure how to do this spiritual encounter with people and Jesus.” It’s a little more complex today, isn’t it!

Jesus said in Matthew 19:20 Where two or three come together in My Name, there am I with them. Jesus is where believers come together. So what if we brought those we have found and told to a meeting of believers. It might be in a smaller group in a home or some other meeting place. It might be right here or some other building called a church. But it’s where a group of believers have gathered together.

And maybe if we will bring them to where Jesus said He would be, He would introduce Himself to them in that spiritual sense that we cannot do. It may be a regular church service; it may be a Bible study; it may be a Christmas or Easter presentation. But it’s a place where Jesus is being honored and is present.

Can a person get saved apart from a gathering of believers? Of course they can. Jesus can be found wherever a person opens their heart to Him. But God calls us His Family, and that implies we will live together in relationships with other Christians, not in isolation.

Let me talk to you for a few minutes about a tool that many churches  are using. It’s just a tool. Books that we sometimes give people are tools. The 4 Spiritual Laws is a tool; Steps to Peace With God is a tool. Church dramas and musicals are tools. Billy Graham and Franklin Graham crusades are tools. And Alpha is another tool for bringing people to where Jesus said He would be.

Alpha consists of 3 parts: a dinner, a video presentation, and discussion around tables. It is not Bible school, or even a formal Bible study. It’s not discipleship or meant to bring a person to maturity. It’s evangelism.

It’s a series of basic talks on video by a pastor in England about Jesus and the Bible and prayer and the Holy Spirit and Divine guidance to which Christians bring their lost friends.

It’s built on operation Andrew. Someone who has had an encounter with Jesus tells a relative or friend, and then brings them to where they can meet Jesus.

We want to start Alpha this fall. But we want to introduce it to you this spring. And so on 4 successive Sunday nights, in April and May our Sunday night gathering will move to the gym where we will have dinner together, watch the video, and then discuss it over coffee and dessert.

We will not be inviting our lost friends to this introductory time. It will be so that you get a feeling for what it’s going to be like this fall when you will be inviting your lost friends. It’s easier to invite someone to something when you have checked it out, and this spring will be “check out” time.

I want us to take a few minutes this morning to look at part of an introductory video to Alpha. (show video)

Excited about Jesus! That’s why Andrew found his brother, and told his brother, and brought his brother to Jesus. Excited about Jesus! That’s why Philip found his friend and told his friend and brought his friend to Jesus.

So, are you excited about Jesus? Are you as excited about Jesus as you are about “Lost” or “24” or “Prison Break” or “American Idol” or whatever TV series you are excited about? That’s the reason most of us don’t find people and tell people and bring people to Jesus. We have lost our excitement about Jesus and what He has done for us. “Excited: stirred up; moved to strong emotion; to stir to action.”

The church in the city of Ephesus was a good church, a strong church that had many things in its favor. Here is what God says in Revelation 2 about these people:

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. (V.2-3)

That all sounds wonderful. It was a good church. But then God says:

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (v.4-5)

“You have forsaken your first love.” “You don’t love Me as you did at first” it says in the New Living Translation. “You are no longer excited about Me and about what I have done for you.”

Is that why we are not finding and telling and bringing people any more? If that’s the case, God says we need to repent and return to our first love so that out of our daily encounters with Jesus we might again be excited about Him, and find, and tell and bring others to Jesus in our excitement.

For the next few minutes our worship team is going to come and lead us in some more worship, and I want to ask those of you who would say “My love for Jesus is not what is used to be, not what it should be”, to come and stand across the front here and we are going to pray together. If you would say “I’m not excited about Jesus, and I want to be so I would tell others about Him and what He’s done for me,” let’s come and pray.