Me to We #2

Last week we heard from pastor Luke about this reality that we want to live a life that is Me to We. We are invited in by our heavenly Father to welcome others into allowing him to be the good shepherd. We handed out a card and said hey, would you be willing to pick one person, or maybe you as a family will pick one family that you can pray for, that you can love like crazy, that you can be intentional with by inviting to coffee, inviting to the dinner table, or by going out of your way to show your love.

And I think it’s easy to come and listen to a sermon like that and my experience is, honestly, I grew up in church and so we talked about this all the time. We should go, we should tell, but it always led to this problem. I knew I should, but I didn’t really know how too. And so the word we use in church world about telling others about Jesus is Evangelism. And to be honest, it always kind of this difficult thing that I wasn’t always comfortable with or sure what to do with it. It just doesn’t seem like a natural thing to do. It seems like you have to force it.

And as I was thinking about this, I started thinking about the techniques I was given while I was growing up and I started to realize that there were a few basic ways I was taught.

First, I was taught to bring my friend to church or youth group so that the “expert” could show them. And then we got really sophisticated and had events that were all about evangelism. So it was my job to just invite them and hope they encountered Jesus in this 1.5 hour program that was usually filled with lots of sugar, loud music, and some crazy game you had only seen on tv to that point.

Second, if the whole evangelism event didn’t work, the next step was that I was supposed to CONFRONT a stranger and present the “Truth” to them and try to win an argument by being prepared to answer all their questions. And once I answered all their questions, they would have no choice but to decide to follow Jesus. And if I can be so bold and blunt, sometimes the message that I received from pastors, and leaders was that if I wasn’t confronting people, then I Must not care about people, I must be “ashamed of the gospel” and so what happened was I was guilt tripped into and fear was used to get a desired result. Now I want to say this is just me, so this might not be a you thing. I’m just sharing my understanding and experience.

But I realized that after asking “Excuse me sir, if you were to die tonight, do you know for sure you’d go to heaven?” And then being able to prove that the bible was true, they still didn’t necessarily fall to their knees and confess Christ as their savior. I realized I couldn’t argue people into the kingdom. And looking back on all this, reflecting on this, I realized while people might have been well intended, I don’t know if bait and switch tactics, hostile conversations, and hard sell techniques that were filled with fear, guilt and shame, is actually the method that Jesus lived out.

So would thinking about this…The question that always pervaded my thinking was does this mean I’m “ashamed of the gospel?” Do I just need to get over myself and just try harder? Maybe? But I think there is something deeper going on here.

But my hunch is, some of us have felt similar to this. When you actually got down to trying to evangelize, or tell others about Jesus, you may have yourself, or seen others who were trying to win people by coercive evangelism.

· Sauna example?

So maybe you tried that or you saw that and it kind of felt gross and your like, I don’t know if that was effective. And so what people do is they then back way off and they simply try to “Connect” with people outside the church. And you hope that after months and years you would connect with people and they would eventually just kind of become a Christian by osmosis. You would try a “Sneaky evangelism.”

And so if you’ve done this, you may have realized, that felt better, but it still didn’t really bear any fruit. So I think the giant question we need to ask ourselves is, what are we supposed to do? What does this look like? How do we go about this. We really only have two tactics and they both have some major flaws. But here is what I want to propose today. What if we took these two ways of evangelism that are on the opposite end of the spectrum and we realized that there are elements of both that are necessary to what I want to call “living a life of evangelism.” (Maybe living as a disciple)

So what we really need in reaching people is connection to people we are trying to reach, as well as distinction from them. What I want to propose is that is what we want to do is do what Jesus does. Maybe you’ve never thought about it before, but God is just like Jesus. Right, if Jesus is God, then it means that Jesus is just like God. So when we look at the way in which Jesus lived his life, we have an idea of what God would have us do. Now, I’m not saying that you and I are identical to Jesus. But I am saying that we can look to him to learn from what does it look like for him to engage with the world. And from that we can take an understanding.

So today is going to be a little different than most sermons. Because we want to look at how Jesus enters into evangelism with people, how he tells them about the kingdom. So we are going to look at a few different passages today, and we are going to do it quicker than normal because there is a lot of ground for us to cover.

(He belonged before he believed)

Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector. So what you need to know is that tax collectors were viewed as the most despicable of groups because they were Jews who made a living off of exploiting other Jews on behalf of the Roman empire. So to say the least, these people were pretty despised. On top of that, Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector. He was the one who oversaw everyone.

Now it strikes me that it says in verse 3 that “he wanted to see who Jesus was.” A sinner, a despised sinner, actually wanted to see Jesus. There was something about him, that was compelling. Or we could say there was something about him that was distinct that Zacchaeus was curious about.

The second thing I notice is that immediately Jesus, does two things and both have to do with Connection. He calls him by name. Now this is just a short abbreviated story, but the implication here is that Jesus is connecting with him. He is bringing value to him by simply knowing and saying his name. Second, he says “I must stay at your house today.” Now, what you need to understand is that in the Jewish culture this was a huge deal. When you and I share a meal it’s kind of a big deal. It’s nice, it’s a sign of friendship but I’m not defined in anyway by if you come have lunch with me. However, during this era, if I were to invite you to my house, or I was to share a meal with you, it meant that I completely affirm who you are. I am saying that you are one of my tribe. You belong with me. This is important, he belonged, before he believed. Jesus welcomed him and created a place he could belong before he believed. The question is when we are interacting with people….do they feel like they belong? Or do they think they need to change before they can belong? So the religious leaders find this act completely scandalous.

Vs. 7 says “he’s gone to be the guest of a sinner.” Meaning, how could he! Now this is a constant problem Jesus has. The religious get mad at him because he is hanging out with people that aren’t’ living up to their ideals. So instead of trying to understand and learn from Jesus the things they don’t understand, like we are going to do today, what they do is mock and ridicule because what he is doing doesn’t fit their paradigm. So they actually accuse him of being a drunk and a glutton at one point ().

But to Jesus this is irrelevant. He is concerned with Zacchaeus. He is concerned with connecting to him. It doesn’t mean that he gives in on his convictions, but he also doesn’t have to be fearful that sinful behavior is contagious. Sinful behavior is intentional. Not contagious. And because Jesus lives this way, he can enter in with everyone.

Now notice what happens, Jesus lives a life of high distinction, so much that Zacchaeus is interested in what he has to say. He also is connected to Zacchaeus and the result is that Salvation comes to his house that day. He completely receives God’s grace. In fact, he kind of gets greedy with it. He’s like oh “so you are going to forgive me of my sin???:” Well I’m just going to give that grace to others then. I’ll go give away half of my possessions to the poor and if I cheated anyone I’ll give them 4 times back what I owe them. (a 5th extra was standard practice.)

Scholars point to 19:10 as being the key verse of the gospel of Luke. The one that is the climax of the portrait Luke is painting of Jesus. “The son of man came to seek and save the lost.”

And with that one statement we see Jesus intent. Jesus, being fully God, and God being just like Jesus, reveals something to us incredibly important. God values the lost. He values them. The downtrodden, the outcasts, the people who are far from God he values them. And so Jesus spent his time reaching out to those people and teaching his followers to do the same.

So I want to spend the rest of our time talking about how we go about this. And I want to give us a grid of what Jesus did do and what he didn’t do. We talked about how we have issues sometimes when it comes to sharing our faith.

Coercive evangelism fail

Remember the first way we fail at evangelism? We try to manipulate and coerce people into the kingdom. We confront random strangers and ask them about their eternal destiny and try to win an argument.

These kinds of evangelism techniques are what we might call high-distinction tactics. Right out of the gate, I emphasize how I am different from you, and how you can become like me.

Of course the problem with this approach is that nobody cares! They can see you’re different, but the way you’re different is that you’re an insensitive busybody who at the end of the day has an agenda and who doesn’t actually care about me.

It doesn’t matter how good your argument is! You have no relational connection with the person you’re speaking with, so they don’t really care. This is coercive evangelism: high-distinction, but low connection.

Another problem with coercive evangelism is that we assume people are bad. My boys being super heroes. We assume they have these pathetic lives. What I want to propose though is some of us come with this mentality of we are good they are bad. We have everything they need and they just need to receive it. But the truth is, there are a lot of really great people in our world doing a lot of really great things. So to simply think that we just need to tell people the right answer, to them…it’s not going to feel like the right answer. So how do we go about this?

If you lead people by fear, or without distinction, guess what, (spoiler alert), it doesn’t work! Even if they “get in” because of the fear, guilt, and shame, they’re not actually getting saved from anything. They’re just signing up for more bondage! The motivation isn’t wrong, but the vision of implementation was wrong.

Osmosis evangelism fail

But of course the other way most of us fail at evangelism is when we swing to the other extreme: high connection, but low distinction.

This is when we turn down the distinction and turn up the connection. We simply become “friends” with people, hoping they’ll become Christians by osmosis. At the end of the day, you can’t call anyone to anything, because there’s nothing really distinct about you.

“Come join us, because we’re exactly like you!” is not a compelling vision, nor does it even make sense! You can’t join something if you already belong. If I’m no different than you there’s nowhere for you to move. This is why osmosis evangelism doesn’t work.

Now we said that people need to belong before they believe often. So this doesn’t mean that we are going back on that. What it means is, if you only hang out with people. And if they don’t see anything different about you (and I’m not talking about just going to church, or quoting a Bible verse because people see right through that. I’m talking about that you respond in true and authentic ways different to business situations because you are so impacted by the love of Christ. I’m talking about how you selflessly give of your time to invest in people in significant ways or that when you get stabbed in the back, you don’t lash out and act like everyone. But you confront those situations with grace and truth. With the love that you have received from God.

This is the false dichotomy we get stuck in…

· Without connection, no one will listen. Without distinction, you have no message.

· Without connection, your distinction looks suspiciously like a colonization program. Without distinction, your connection doesn’t lead anywhere.

So what’s the third way? What’s evangelism with high connection and high distinction? What the upper-right quadrant? It’s incarnational evangelism/ Me to We

This is evangelism in the way of Jesus, because Jesus, as the incarnation, is the perfect embodiment of connection AND distinction at the same time. Jesus is 100% human (connection), and 100% God (distinction).

He embodies connection by fully identifying with us in becoming human. He also embodies distinction from us in remaining fully divine and calling us toward divine life.

One of the most remarkable things about Jesus’ ministry was that “sinners” wanted to be with him, even though he was so clearly not like them. Do the people who are far from God want to be with you? Why or why not?

So what we want to do is say okay how do I apply this. How do I move into this space.

And here is how we want to frame this. We want to say, at the end of the day, God loves you like crazy! There was a time in your life that you were lost, and you know what even when you were maybe far from God, he still pursued you like crazy! Jesus said he came to seek and save the lost.

And so what we are doing is asking you to pick one person that you can extend the same love that you have received from Jesus to others. To pick one person that you can pray for, that you can invite to coffee, that you can invite to dinner, that you can just sit and say….without an agenda of “making them into a Christian, but just offering the invitation to others that you have received by saying tell me your story. Tell me who you are.

Jim Keefer – Kids getting in trouble, wanted to donate an air hockey table as a set up. I talked with him and said, you know, I just feel like I’m supposed to ask you, “Why do you think your kids will believe in something that you don’t believe? Why should they go? Don’t you think they might just feel fixed?” I said, I don’t know you, but would you be willing to go to breakfast some day and tell me your story? He said yes.

· He had a business that was failing

· He was a workaholic/alcoholic

· His marriage was hostile.

So I just said, Jim. It sounds like you have a lot of bad news in your life. I know you don’t think God is real, but if he was, what do you think he’d say to you? Do you think he has bad news for you or do you think he has good news for you?

And after maybe 4 months of meeting together, after asking questions, after feeling like, hey there is someone in this world that actually cares about me and I haven’t had to do anything to receive it, his marriage was based on performance, his job, and his relationship with his kids was all about results and a give and take relationship. After 4 months he decided he wanted to surrender his life to Jesus.

Can I tell you, he was a changed man. I watched him go from a hardened man, a constant grit in his teeth. To the softest most sensitive person you have ever met. He started coming to church and would sit in my office before service just tearing up about all that God meant to him and that he had seen God do.

Do you know why God was able to break through in Jim’s life…. because now he saw someone with a relationship with Jesus, that was high distinction and still highly connected. And because I was willing to sit with him for 4 months while he was still making bad decisions. Quite honestly, I think the reason we don’t get to Incarnational evangelism often is because we aren’t patient. Because we want to swoop in, tell people what they should do, and if they don’t do it on our timeline, well it just means that they never will. And the reality is, we don’t know if people will or not. You know what though, Jesus didn’t say, go into all the world telling others about my love, but if they are taking to long, or if you decide that they might not actually accept my message then go ahead and just stop caring about them.

NO! What he says, you go, you love others like crazy. And why do we do this? Because of . “We love because he first loves us!” The reason we go and love others, is because we know we are loved. So now this building, this gathering isn’t about me and my preferences or about me getting what I want. Instead, it’s about me surrendering to what God tells me to do, and trust that he is at work and that he has good things in store.

The Missional purpose is for us to partner with Jesus in his work.

In all of this, I am not trying to give you 3 points of how you do this. I’m trying to show you this is a way of life. I’m trying to paint a picture, to get our imaginations turning because the reality is that ever person you encounter is going to be different. Every person will have different issues. So we can’t make absolute statements other than we need to spend time in prayer, we need to invest intentionally, and we need to enter in to people’s lives.

Your biggest way to share your story is:

· Be intentional

· Your testimony is your biggest asset

· “Share your faith all the time, and if necessary, use words.”

Story of Mark and how I’ve been able to enter in, hear his story, and tell him I’m praying for him. We text, we haven’t seen each other for a bit, but we see each other. Maybe he will surrender his life to Christ maybe he won’t. That’s not my job. My job is to love, because he first loved us.

It looks like doing life together. Playing basketball, watching football, and talking about life.

But maybe it will turn out like the story of Alex and Sebastian. Or maybe it will be like my brother praying for his friend in high school.

Story of Jordan inviting Clint. Him, his mom, his dad, his grandparents all met Jesus.

We walk with people after they meet Jesus. Just like Jordan is still friends with Clint.

We don’t know what the future holds. But here is what I do know. If we value the lost like Jesus seems to value them, if we love people the way that we have received love, I am willing to bet anything that in 6 months, 1 year, 5 years from now. We are going to see God do some incredible things. And we are going to be able to tell more than just 1 or 2 stories. We are going to be able to tell tons of how great God is and what he is doing in and through our lives.

We ask, why aren’t people coming to the church? What is happening? My thought is, maybe it’s not that they have stopped coming to the church. Maybe the church stopped meeting people where they are!? Jesus met every disciple not in the temple but on the shore, he ministered to those on the streets not those on Sunday mornings. He was intentional in being among the sick, needy. We have to avoid the mindset that the church is the ultimate goal. It’s not. Jesus is the ultimate goal and the purpose of the church is to worship Jesus, to let others know about Jesus, to encourage each other. It’s designed to be a “we” place not a “me” place. And the problem is that when we say the words, Why don’t they come to church, what we are saying is, why aren’t they living the way “I” “Me” want?

We aren’t asking you to change the world. But we are asking you to change the world for one person

Jesus spent time searching for people far from God. We often spend our time judging people far from God.

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