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| Go Fish #6: Don't Muddy Up the Water | 3.07.10 Home |
Core Thread
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Sometimes we make sharing Jesus way too complicated. In our Bible classes we will share several natural ways to do this, but here's a simple one you can use that has been used before.
A well known event in Jesus' life was His baptism (Luke 3:20-21). After Jesus was baptized, God told Jesus three things, things we would love to hear from God:
If we believe that Jesus died for us, was buried, and raised from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), we can share in Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection by being baptized into Christ (Romans 6:3-5) and know that God will say the same thing about us as He said about Jesus when He was baptized! "You are my child, whom I love, with you I am well pleased." (Notice that 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 centers the saving gospel in Jesus' death burial and resurrection and Romans 6:3-5 talks about how we share in those events, through faith, in our baptism.)
The real key for us is to learn to share a simple and biblical way for people to connect to Jesus and be saved. We have outlines from Acts 2 available to anyone who wants one to help them share their faith in Jesus or to paste them into their own Bibles to share with others.
As we look to living a "front porch" lifestyle, here's a five step life-strategy to share Jesus with others in an authentic way:
Pray for people you want to reach, pray to have your eyes and heart open to the people God places in your path, pray to have the right sense of timing, and pray to have the courage when God provides you the opportunity!
God wired you the way He wanted you to be and you are wired into relationships so you can have influence for Jesus, so don't trie to weird or someone you are not, be you: be real and you will have all sorts of opportunities to share Jesus!
Talk is cheap, so like Jesus, demonstrate your genuine concern for others by being present in their lives, offer to help, give of yourself, and show that your genuinely care for them!
Share what God has done in your life through Jesus — we are calling these God-stories.
Help them respond in faith to Jesus through placing their faith in Him and being baptized.
Ultimate Survivor!
Review
When we follow Jesus, He sends us out to fish! He doesn't ask us to be weird about it, but instead he wants us to realize that we are wired certain ways by His design and wired into the relationships that we have to share His grace with those people.
But that begs a crucial question: Why fish? And the answer is really pretty simple. Our friends can't discover message of Jesus by contemplation or by observing nature. They can be brought to reverence by the wonder of it all, but they will know the story of Jesus unless someone shares it with them!
So why don't we more readily share the message of Jesus? Once again, the answer is pretty simple: FEAR. We are not so much afraid of persecution or losing our lives, but we are afraid we're not good enough, that we will be rejected and alone, and that we don't know what to say. But, God is looking for everyday folks in whom He promises to be at work, as they share Jesus.
This week, we want to focus on a fourth principle in our Go Fish series: Fishing is always better with buddies!
The reason?
And it really doesn't matter whether we fish near or far, fishing is better with buddies! So Jesus sent his disciples out with buddies (Mark 6:7 & Luke 10:1). And Jesus' early followers went out with buddies (Acts 13:1-3 & Acts 15:40-41).
We are committed to not let those close to us be "the one who got away"! We want to do everything we can to bring our friends to Jesus! We want to be like the four friends who got their paralyzed buddy to Jesus, even if it meant digging through the roof (Mark 2:1-12)! Only Jesus can bring true wholeness to life — forgiveness and healing!
