How To: Introduce People to Jesus

Chapter 1 of John, it starts off with, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and walked among us." That's how it begins.

Then it goes on, and it introduces a character, and his name was John the Baptist. A man who came from the wilderness, and he was kind of an interesting guy. He wore camel hair, and it wasn't because he was fashionable. He had a really strange diet of locusts and wild honey, that's grasshoppers and honey. It's weird, right?

John came, and he came with a different perspective, a different understanding, and something big for people to grab hold of; but the main thing that John would say and proclaim as he went, he would say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

In other words, he's looking at the children of Israel, and he would look at them and he would say, "Here's what I'm here to tell you, you've got to get your heart ready because there's somebody coming. He's going to change the world."  

In John 1:35-39, we see what it was like for John to see Jesus. John was again standing with two of his disciples, and Jesus walked by, and John looked at him and declared, "Look, here is the Lamb of God right here, right there. He's right here. There's the Lamb of God."

When John's two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus. It says, then Jesus looked around, and he saw them following, and he said, "What do you want?"

I think that's funny. I feel like Jesus should have said, "Oh, brothers, thank you for following me. Thou knowest who I am, right?" That's how we picture, but what did he do? He looked around and he said, "What do you want?"

(You ever felt like that in a grocery store when you say and see the same person multiple times down different aisles? Like, "Dude, are you following me? Are you serious? We can't be shopping for the very same things.") 

Here's the thing, Jesus says, "What are you looking for? What do you want?" They replied, "Rabbi," which means teacher, "where are you staying?" Creepy, right? If we met for the first time, and I was like, "Hey, what's your address? I'd really like to come see your house at night. Just after dark, it's fine." No, no, no, they said, "Where are you staying?" Here's Jesus response, and I love this, just three words, "Come and see," he said.

So how do we introduce people to Jesus? We follow what Jesus did. We tell people, "come and see."

• Come and see because I want you to grow in confidence and in faith, I want you to understand me.
•  I want you to know where I'm coming from. I want you to get the big picture here, so come and see and stay. Be with me.

Before I tell you what exactly you need to do (everybody loves a to-do list), let me just give you a little bit of encouragement. You are called to be his witnesses, not called to be his lawyer. 

That's why we don't tell people about Jesus, honestly. We are worried we need to know everything.

" Okay fine, I don't know all my Bible. I don't know everything. I don't want to have all the answers. I would really like to, but I'm not very good at all this stuff." What if I screw it up?" That's why we don't tell people.

But you're not here to convince people to follow Jesus. You've just got to say come and see. He'll take care of the rest. 

1. Open the Door
there's a church that I really like and they call every volunteer at their church a door holder. You know why? Because when you come to church, there's going to be nothing in your way. We're going to pull every obstacle out of your way so that you can find your way in so that you can come and see and meet Jesus without anything blocking your view or your ability to hear.

2. Opportunity
A lot of people, all they're doing is standing at the door, like, "If somebody would open the door, I would come in." Some people, they just need a chance, an opportunity.

3. Invitation
An invitation may be talking, it may be speaking, it may be sharing. Maybe it looks like serving people or genuinely caring for them. That's as much an invitation as anything else.

Here's my challenge: be the people that say come and see. Provide an open door, provide an opportunity, provide an invitation. My dream, my goal, my hope, my vision, and what I believe God wants us to do: picture 10 people in your head and give them an opportunity to come and see, and God will do something amazing.