November 3, 2002

Service Theme – "Our God is Love"

Mark 2:1-12

Getting People to Jesus

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – Madeleine L’Engle, quoted in Christian Reader (May/June 1998, p. 50)], wrote, Evangelism is not what we tell people, unless what we tell is totally consistent with who we are. It is who we are that is going to make the difference. If we do not truly enjoy our faith, nobody is going to catch the fire of enjoyment from us. If our lives are not totally centered on Christ, we will not be Christ-bearers for others, no matter how pious our words (as cited on SermonCentral.com).
2. Context – We have a lot of misconceptions of what evangelism is supposed to be like. When we think of that term, who do we think of? Billy Graham. Luis Palau. Billy Sunday, if we go back a few years. But the story we’re looking at in Mark 2:1-12 shows us that we don’t have to be Christian superstars in order to bring people to Jesus.

1. Scripture Passage

1. Mark 2:1-12 – A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. ² So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. ³ Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. ⁴ Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. ⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." ⁶ Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ⁷ "Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" ⁸ Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? ⁹ Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? ¹⁰ But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." He said to the paralytic, ¹¹ "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." ¹² He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
2. In one sense this story is about some guys who broke the rules. They didn’t wait their turn. They damaged some property. Imagine what the guy who owned the house was thinking! He probably called up his roofer and said, "Warren, you’re not going to believe this!" But this story also takes everything we’re about and boils it down to one thing – getting people to Jesus! Getting people to Jesus is the bottom line – it’s the only thing we’re about. As Pastor Dave Engbrecht put it, "You were placed here to get people to Jesus." This story shows us five critical components that we’ve got to have as individuals and as a church if we’re going to get people to Jesus.

1. Five Critical Components

1. The first critical component is passion. These four men were so filled with passion that they were willing to do anything to get this paralytic to Jesus. You see, God does amazing things through ordinary people filled with extraordinary passion. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, "What are we passionate about?" Jeff Strite writes, At times we probably feel it would be so much easier if we could be like Lucy in the old Peanuts cartoon: Lucy says to Charlie Brown, "I would have made a great evangelist." Charlie Brown answers, "Is that so?" She says, "Yes, I convinced that boy in front of me in school that my religion is better than his religion." Charlie Brown asked, "Well, how did you do that?" And Lucy answers, "I hit him over the head with my lunch box" (as cited on SermonCentral.com). Like Lucy, we are often filled with a passion for the wrong thing! We’ve got to be filled with passion for getting people to Jesus if we’re going to see it happen in our lives and in the life of our church. Engbrecht says, "The problem with Christianity today is that Christians aren’t passionate about Jesus." I agree. We get very passionate about our traditions and our methods and our money. But we don’t get passionate about Jesus. As Engbrecht put it, "It’s not about noise, nickels or numbers." It’s not about how many activities we have going here at church, although those activities are tools to help us achieve our goal. It’s not about how much money we do or don’t have, although money is a tool to help us achieve our goal. It’s not about how many people we have attending church here, although people are tools in the hands of God to help us achieve our goal. But the bottom line, what our goal as a church really is all about, is getting people to Jesus. It’s hard work, and it really causes us to get out of our comfort zone. As Engbrecht says, "Loving lost and irreligious people takes a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in your heart." We struggle with that because lost and irreligious people remind us too much of ourselves when we’ve been apart from Christ. We have to get past that and remember what it’s all about. We have to remember that passion for Jesus will bring us great joy. As William Treadwell (Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 3) wrote, If we can convince people that we are onto something that's full of joy, they'll stampede one another to follow us (as cited on PreachingToday.com). That’s what passion does for us! But we have to allow the Holy Spirit to put His passion in our hearts if we’re going to see the bottom line take place and get people to Jesus.
2. The second critical component is persistence. Those four men were passionate to get the paralytic to Jesus, but they also had obstacles to overcome. They had to do a lot of hard work. They had to get through the crowd in the courtyard enough to get to the ladder, then they had to carry the paralytic up the ladder to the roof without dumping him. Then they had to dig through the roof, through a thick layer of clay and through several layers of branches. Then they had to man those ropes and lower him down. They had to overcome the obstacle of hard work, but they also had to overcome the obstacle of overcoming their fears. What if they had gone through all that hard work and Jesus rejected them? They didn’t play by the rules and wait their turn. They damaged property. Jesus could have very easily said, "Sorry, but you’re interfering with my lesson plans, so you’re out of luck." That was a fear. There also was the fear of the crowd. How would the crowd react to these guys taking Jesus attention away from them? One other fear – they had to know the Pharisees were in there because of their distinctive clothing. What if the Pharisees excommunicated them because of their faith in Jesus? They would be ostracized from the rest of Jewish society for the rest of their lives! Yet these four men persistently overcame the obstacles in their path to get this paralytic to Jesus. We will always hit obstacles when we seek to bring people to Jesus. But, as Engbrecht put it, "God smiles when He sees faith." So, no matter what the obstacles, we have to be persistent in our pursuit of the bottom line. D.L. Moody (Christian History, no. 25) wrote, If you can really make a man believe you love him, you have won him; and if I could only make people really believe that God loves them, what a rush we would see for the kingdom of God! (as cited on PreachingToday.com). It takes persistence to truly love someone, and it will take persistence to get people to see that God loves them. But, no matter what, we’ve got to get people to Jesus! Davon Huss writes, It is said that Claude, a Christian man, was unjustly imprisoned in the Bastille (a French prison). At the same time another man was imprisoned who was so brutal and ferocious that no one dared approach him. The jailer, recognizing Claude’s Christian character, begged him to undertake to humanize this monster. Accordingly, the humble Christian was shut up with this human brute, which subjected him to the worst kind of treatment. Through it all, Claude’s only reply was to exhibit silence, patience, and mildness under attack. His prayers achieved the rest. The monster at length looked into the face of his companion, suddenly threw himself at his feet, and burst into a flood of penitent tears. He became a new creature in Christ, and even when set at liberty could scarcely be prevailed upon to leave his Christian friend (as cited on SermonCentral.com). That is what persistently bringing people to Jesus is all about!
3. The third critical component was that these four men had a plan. They decided to meet the challenge creatively. Now we have to remember the balance and stay within the limits of decency and morality and sound doctrine, but we also have to remember that passion sometimes colors outside the lines. That does not give us license to do whatever we want, but if it decent and moral and doctrinally sound and it will bring people to Jesus, we should do it! Myron Augsburger (Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 3) wrote, When I evangelize, I'm simply trying to describe people's deepest concerns and show how Jesus addresses them (as cited on PreachingToday.com). That’s how you plan creatively to bring people to Jesus – you plan creatively to meet their needs. And if our congregation could be so filled with a passion for the lost and irreligious that we say "whatever it takes to bring people to Jesus," and then we do it, God will do a miracle. That I can guarantee, because God’s word says it! As author and theologian William Barclay said, "More people have been brought into the church by the kindness of real Christian love than by all the theological arguments in the world" (As cited on SermonCentral.com). Remember last week we talked about the concept of so surrendering ourselves with reckless abandon to the cause of Christ that we step out in faith to the point where either God shows up or we look like fools. That applies to us as a church! We have to be passionate, persistent, and creatively plan if we want to get people to Jesus.
4. The fourth critical component is pain. I wish I could just completely skip this one, because although I deal with physical pain every day I’d just assume do anything I can to avoid it. The question here is, "How much pain can we take?" Yes, I know we’ve hurt a whole bunch in the past, but it’s going to cost a lot of pain if we’re going to bring people to Jesus. It will cost us physical pain, because of the things we will have to do to bring people to Jesus. It will cost us emotional pain, the pain of wondering what people are going to think, if they are going to reject us because what we’re doing doesn’t fit within the boundaries of our normal thinking. It will cost a lot of money if we’re going to bring people to Jesus, as we can tell from the cost of our audio/video project. The tools we will need to use to bring people to Jesus will cost money. The physical effort needed to bring people to Jesus will tax us. The pain of risking ridicule and rejection in doing the things necessary to bring people to Jesus will bring many tears. But, as Engbrecht says, "You’re never going to reach people for Christ until you’re willing to pay the price." Ray Hoo ("Turn Your World Upside Down," Discipleship Journal, July/August 1982) wrote, During the nineteenth century a group of missionaries in what is now Surinam in South America, wanted to reach the inhabitants of a nearby island with the gospel. Most of these islanders were slaves on the large plantations that covered the island. The plantation owners feared the gospel and its results, and would not even allow the missionaries to talk with the slaves. They would allow only other slaves to talk with slaves. So the missionaries sold themselves into slavery in order to take the gospel to the islanders. Working in bondage in the harsh conditions of a tropical climate, they reached many of them with the good news (as cited on PreachingToday.com). If we want to bring people to Jesus, we have to be passionate, persistent, plan creatively, and willing to bear the pain. But the fifth component makes it all worthwhile.
5. The fifth critical component is the payoff. When we have all of the above, and mix it with passionate and persistent prayer, we get the payoff – people coming to Christ! The result of the four men doing everything they had to do to bring the paralytic to Jesus wasn’t just physical healing. I never want to discount physical healing, because that is a wonderful miracle of God. But the most important healing was the healing of the man’s soul. What was the first thing Jesus said to the paralytic? "Son, your sins are forgiven." When we bring people to the foot of the cross, they experience the most wonderful, powerful healing man can ever experience – the forgiveness of their sins and restoration of their relationship with God the Father. Wow! That’s the payoff! Could it get any more awesome than that? But to get there, to see their friend healed, those four men had to be passionate and persistent, overcoming obstacles with a creative plan, and endure the pain. To get to the payoff, we will have to be passionate and persistent, overcoming obstacles with creative planning, and endure the pain. We will have to do that as a church and as individuals if we want to see the payoff.
6. Every one of us knows someone who doesn’t have a personal loving relationship with Jesus Christ. Every one of us who knows Jesus needs to be like those four men and hold the rope for that person who doesn’t know Jesus. At Summer Conference, Dave Engbrecht introduced the concept of having a rope person, someone whom we will intentionally pray for and build relationship for the purpose of bringing that person to Christ. My two rope people are my mom and dad. So the question I have for you is this: would you be willing to hold the rope for a specific person who God lays on your heart? Would you be willing to say, "I will never give up interceding for and building relationship with this person until they come to Christ or I die"? Who does God want to be your rope person? In a moment I’ll give you the opportunity to mark the moment by coming up front and taking a piece of rope, not as a cute gimmick, but as a reminder to pray for and build relationship with that person God lays on your heart. Engbrecht told the story of how he and his wife take mission trips every year to India. On one of those trips he gave this sermon on the concept of having a rope person. Many, many Indian Christians took pieces of rope. The next year when he came back, Engbrecht ran into one of his friends, who was accompanied by another man holding a piece of rope. Through an interpreter, Engbrecht discovered that this friend had taken on his barber as his rope person. The barber was the one holding the rope, and he had come to Christ. Then the next year, the barber was there with another man holding a piece of rope – his rope person who had come to Christ! That, folks, is what it’s all about!
7. Illustration - David Jeremiah (The Handwriting on the Wall) wrote, Years ago in London there was a large gathering of notables for a concert. One of the invited guests was a famous preacher, Caesar Milan. A young lady charmed the audience that night with her singing. After the concert Milan went up to her and graciously, but boldly, said to her, "I thought as I listened to you tonight how tremendously the cause of Christ would be benefited if your talents were dedicated to His cause. You know, young lady, you are a sinner in the sight of God, but I am glad to tell you that the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse you from all sin." The lady became so angry at the preacher that she stomped her feet and walked away. As she was leaving he said, "I mean no offense. I will pray that God’s Spirit will convict you." Now that’s not exactly my style of witnessing, but here’s the rest of the story. The young lady went home, but she couldn’t sleep. The face of the preacher appeared before her, and his words rang through her mind. About two o’clock in the morning she got out of bed, took a pencil and piece of paper, and with tears rolling down her face, Charlotte Elliot wrote: Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come (as cited on SermonCentral.com). Caesar Milan took on Charlotte Elliot as his rope person, and the Church has been blessed with this great hymn ever since. Who does God want to be your rope person?

1. Conclusion

1. With every head bowed and every eye closed, take a few moments right now to ask God who He wants to be your rope person. Earnestly seek Him right now for His guidance.
2. If you’ve allowed God to place someone on your heart to be your rope person, come forward now and get a piece of rope to symbolize your commitment to pray for and build relationship with that person and to remind you to do it. If God’s been prompting you, come forward and get a piece of rope now.