How to Lead Others to Jesus: Popping the Question

Everybody you're listening to a new beginning, which is a podcast made possible by harvest partners. This program is impacted you, I love to hear from you. So just send an email to me at greg@harvest.org again it's greg@harvest.org you can learn more about becoming harvest partner by going to harvest.org today on a new beginning pastor Greg Laurie pointed out the great commission was given to us all. We each have to be writing to share Christ with those around really care how you listen to what is let me ask you this. Would you like to us in Jesus Christ come in your life right. What's the worst thing that can have will say no. What's the best thing that can happen, but I think there comes a moment when you got it just popped in beginning after Greg Moore featured speaker of the harvest coming to Angel Stadium in Southern California on October 3. Greg offers practical help in sharing our faith and learning how to pose that most important question like to ask Christ in your life. Get information on pastor great free training course Hotel someone that expands on this is real: the salvation of other some of the sow the seed, through our godly living others. One of the seeds you may be something we said or did. For a person and mention our faith in others.

Three brothers have so and water, but I think there comes a moment when you got it.

Just grab it. I read an interesting story in the paper a while back about a fisherman who is testing an outboard propeller on a lake in Ohio.

There in the cove beside giant Moscow lunge fish lurking near the surface. Although the fishermen motored toward the fish and cast his line unsuccessfully. A number of times and finally this massive fish disappear and does so he came back to the cove about a half-hour later and there's a fish again that Moscow lunge or musky as they're called in this time.

He thinks you know I don't know if I can snag this fish with a line so he puts on a leather glove and he puts his his motor into sort of control any cruises that reaches down and grabs the fish with his hand right behind the ghost NEA said about it so big and it's flailing he needed help. Another person was thereby given assisted him in the pool.

This giant beast out of the lake and it came crashing into the boat. He caught it by hand.

If he had caught up with the proper equipment.

It would've been a world record was 53 pounds when he was asked later by reporter what happened. He humbly replied well I was at the right place at the right time, I was fool enough to grab it like that. That's all we need to be this be full enough to grab it us this person right now they want to accept Jesus Christ. What's the worst thing that can happen, though, so you know what's the best thing that can happen will say yes and maybe they'll say later but it's progress so we want to have that same attitude as we go fishing for men because Jesus said, follow me and you'll become a fisher of men. But how do you get a person from any to be.

You know how you get a personnel to say I want Jesus in my life. How do you lead a person to Christ. Let me just say this in response. It's not as hard as you think it's just popping the question is, are likely to get married you pop the question right.

I was in Israel number of years ago. The couple from our church.

Aaron and Michelle and aware of the Mount of Beatitudes and Eric to me and says I want to propose to Michelle at the end of your message right here on this mountain were Jesus gave the sermon on the Mount said really says I like you did so to set it up for me and I said okay let me ask you question she can say yes.

You don't want to be shut down in front of everyone. So you shall say yes I said are you sure as I'm sure so I'm speaking now and I'm looking at her the whole time think it hope she says yes so she says yes. I don't think I said okay well I'm done and that it was her birthday so she thought it was going to leave everyone and happy birthday said while Michelle this a special day for you and it's you know she's kind of funny. I said there's somebody that wants to ask you a question. Aaron Aaron comes walking up there and he gets down on one meaning is this Michelle will you marry me. I'm saying send either please say yes please say yes. She said yes. They been married have a child, not wonderful but he popped the question to see I have a friend who went scuba diving with his girlfriend and he took one of those underwater tablets and wrote will you marry me underwater and she said yes. As always, you can do it. Just do it know my wife says I never properly proposed decision really never really proposing is saturated know you then said whatever and she says well we were just out eating dinner. Here's what you said.

Well I guess were going to get married half the city. I guess we is pretty lame.

Guys don't follow my example go with the bended knee deal. I don't really care how you pop the question.

Just pop the question. What's the question we ask you this.

Would you like to us Jesus Christ to come in your life right now and you would be surprise and summonses yes but here's what they can also say like here you might be in an unusual place, not the church necessarily you might be in a copy shop you might be on a beach.

You might be out of the street somewhere right here absolutely. Here's what I never do I never say just go home and pray this for now.

I think to pray right now right here mods put my hand on their shoulder and I'll leave them in a prayer and I think you've heard me leave this prayer enough times, but it will go something along the lines and I'll often ask them to repeat it after BSA's pray this prayer outlawed after the Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner but I know that you're the Savior you died on the cross for my sin and I'm sorry for my sin and I turn from it now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Just pop that question be like that guy with that big old Moscow lunge fish and be full enough to grant school for Polaroid out of their ears ago in our neighborhood where the neighbor came up to us and said here's a guy that lives in the neighborhood name Roy anyone 20 or crusades once, but is not a Christian and Roy was just sent home from the hospital and told he was going to die this get his affairs in order. He's going to die and it would be nice if you could talk to him about Christ. I said I'd be happy to. So the neighbor pointed them out to me one day and I walked up and said hi Roy and Greg Laurie heard you can do whatever crusades yeah I'd like to know that these start hit me with some questions and we talk a little bit and then the next he walked every morning and I did to my wife so we walked wonderful Roy you know more as Mark was on through more questions and we talked for a while then the third day from one of my books along the book called life.

Any questions that sort of an evangelistic presentation I said what I wanted to read this book and will talk about it. I thought that looking busy for a week.

The next day we see what I read your entire book. Well day more questions and more questions come from Roy and so I don't feel like I making any progress and we pray for him. Of course, but I'm thinking man at the sky does not long for this world like Opie just comes around here we continue this conversation when a prolonged time when they were sitting in our house and were having breakfast doing a little family devotion and I look out the window and there standing on the corner literally right in front of my house is Roy. Just an and suddenly it just on the me, this is Roy's day. This is and thought I don't feel waiting for me to come, or if you would just standing there, but for whatever reason about the premise of Roy.

We talked about this a lot.

Would you like to accept Jesus Christ right now. She said yes sir I would just waiting for me to pop the question.

So we pray he has Christ to come in his life. I gave him a Bible song. The next morning.

He's got a big smile on his face.

He said I was just saying Jesus loves me. I learned that as a young boy boy is a great to know that Jesus loves us on the insured is Roy it's like everything he change a little bit more and then he came up to me and into told me of how God was changing his life and apparently what happened. I didn't know about this. He got his whole family together and he said you're looking at a brand-new Christian right here he was sharing his faith with the stem so little time goes by and I get a knock on my door to my neighbor he says to tell you that Roy died Royce in heaven now because really believed in Jesus Christ and he was just waiting for someone to pop the question and you know what you could do that as well. I got a problem? In a moment. Pastor Greg explains how the great commission is not only during the gospel but making disciples. What's the difference will Pastor Greg explains in a moment. We love stories of how lives have been changed to the teaching of God's word like this one dear Pastor Greg back in the summer of 1986 and after graduating from college, I was certain that it made the wrong choice for a major and a career though I was a believer, I felt as if God and abandoning my first job out of school included in our long commute and a difficult work environment. It was so disappointing that I cried in my first day home driving each morning. I was drawn to biblical teaching on the radio or something fresh and new to me in the way you share the Scriptures your broadcast gave me biblical truth and hold to get through each challenging day ahead I was grateful then and I'm grateful for your broadcast today.

Thank you Pastor Greg. We appreciate hearing held Pastor Greg's teachings are reaching people and if you stories tell of how these studies have touched your life. I hope you'll contact us today.

Send me a great@harvest.org that's great@harvest.org will Pastor Greg continues with his message, how to lead others to Jesus.

Practical principles on sharing our faith most effectively and you can get a replay of today study@harvest.org okay so now once a person prays and accepts Christ another life. Now what now what now a wonderful adventure is before you.

You have the joy of taking a new believer under her wing and watching them grow spiritually. They need to help them to stabilize them and you need them to Rome by you and revitalize you see, by the way, now you're really fulfilling all of the great commission. Remember the great commission is not just to go preach the gospel.

That's a marked version tells us, but Matthew's version in chapter 28 Jesus says go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you, going with you, even to the end of the age discipling what is that mean that means you take a person under your wing and you help them get acclimated me to pick a person up and you take a picture.

Some of the this for me and I think God for Told him I serve my conversion.

You know my popsicle stick Bible remember that.

So I'm a brand-new bully right went over to my friends also used to do drugs with no I didn't want to hang around with them anymore. They were such a loser's but I wasn't quite comfortable with the Christians yet because they all seem just slightly intense to me.

So here's what I said I wouldn't do this all on that stupid you won't last long.

Doing that and some guy that never met comes walking up to me. His name is Mark.

He's not as extreme as the crazy guy who gave me the popsicle stick Bible survey returning to Greg says I Mark I he Mark I saw you like walk forward and accept Christ in your life the other day yeah I did that work out okay will I want you to come to church. I think that's okay Mark I will go to church not know I want to come to church with what you Mark. I don't want to go to church of the know you're coming to church if it just wasn't taking no for an answer, not a mean waiver to send a very persistent way says where you live or pick you up. I don't really know if I'm comfortable yeah okay whatever.

What's your address so I give it to both up to my house get my car drive the church we pull up in the parking lot of the Jesus movement is in full swing. There's people everywhere. The church is packed to the gills.

And don't forget I grew up in a family where we never said I love you. I grew up in a family where no one hug anyone all right, so I'm not a very action a person at this point I walked up to this church. Some girl I've never seen before drove around Ronnie. Praise the Lord brother Mike I get a get out here.

Now this is just like I'm so uncomfortable and I that I found that the church is back.

You can't get in and I was relieved on this Callisto and someone in the front row that was with my high school was part of that will Bible study saw me away. We have a safe early in the front row on oh I walk up there and I took my seat in all this.

Worship is going on around me and I kind I just don't know. And then the pastor comes out and opens up the word of God. I never heard that before I nothing against adult systems like adults generally this guy was bald.

Ironic, isn't it. His name is Chuck Smith and we walked out youthful rebellion kicked in number given reason run all these crazy dysfunctional adult I got into trouble in school allotted. I just had a thing with adult authority. He comes walking I got here we go. Here comes the teeth get ready to be before he opens up the Bible and he begins to read to begin to talk about what Jesus said guess what will make sense but woe to that to me is it's amazing. So I'm there my own, more and I'm there again and again and again she marked this job.

I just need somebody help me make the transition.

Mark took me home to his family a wonderful Christian family. We had a few meals together.

We talk about things in the word of God, but he only get over that little hump.

That's what you gotta do you lead a person to Christ. I said picking you up are bringing you the church I'm introducing you to my Christian friends, and I hope you get started. And then when you're on your own, to go find a new person, they bring them to Christ.

To the best of my ability, to help them get started. Just what them of the got to find another person. You do that for the rest of your life that your job does your marching orders from Jesus Christ. As I said the very beginning. This is fun. There's joy in it. We need to get on with it, but were commanded to go, you know, the apostle Paul was not always Polly once was Saul of Tarsus, the Christian color.

Maddie went out of his way to hunt down arrests and execute Christians. We met Jesus on the Damascus Road and no one believed he was converted because he was so insane. God speaks to guy named Ananias. He says want you to go over there at the house of Saul, he's a brother now in the Lord what you go pray for, because as Isaac been blighted what you pray for nice targets of God just got do not know who Saul is you not look like I know you do what I told you did it.

Ananias goes over he finds Saul sees him, he prays for, and then after that another man enters into Saul's life, whose name is Barnabas and he introduces Saul to other leaders in the church and you see all Saul needed was a friend. You know we all want to be the apostle Paul Wilkinson would be a Barnabas going to be, you know that the great preacher or whatever get someone being Ananias, if we had more Ananias is and if we had, nor more, Barnabas is we would have more apostle Paul. Listen, you may not be the next Billy Graham. You might be the person who influences the next Billy Graham. So just your job.

I can do my job. God puts people in our orbit people that you can reach I can never, ever reach people that will listen to you where to go and all of our world and preach the gospel. These are the orders from a man and she let get on and tells Greg Laurie practical instruction today on how we can tell someone about the hope of Jesus Christ and a just a moment before today's addition of a new beginning. Concludes pastor Greg will lead us in prayer, asking God to fill us and empower us for the privilege of sharing our faith so important. Giving our large evangelistic event coming up in just a little over a month now SoCal harvest October 3 Angel Stadium of Anaheim, California be in prayer and be a part and help you take this teaching on evangelism even further. Want to check out Pastor Greg's online training course called tell someone today is our last opportunity to mention it. It's a six-week course that comes to you a lesson per week via email and it's designed to fully equip you to share the gospel. At the completion of the course is absolutely free. Get the details on the tell someone training course@harvest.org yesterday when we hear objections to the faith. How do we know if they really are stuck on a particular factor idea and there in search of an explanation, or if they really don't even want to talk about religion, then there just in search of an exit from the conversation we know that's a hard question to answer because sometimes people will hide behind so-called intellectual arguments, but they really want you to talk to them, use myself as an illustration when I was a kid I used to hang around by the pier in Newport Beach. I was going the wrong direction in life.

I was on drugs. I was empty and I saw these Christians walking around handing out little booklets and I really wanted one of them to engage me, but I had this tough guy fa�ade that they apparently went for and they would walk by me and just look at me for a moment, just give me this little booklet and walk off. No one would talk to me. I was literally saying would someone please talk to me so I never threw any of these things away. I went home and I had a drawer that was sort of like Mike God drawer if you will. Every piece of religious literature I was given one in the store so it gospel tracts information from the watchtower Society things that Mormons Road hurried, Christian writings, you name it.

It was in there and every now and then I would pull this little drawer out dump it on my bed and I would try to make sense of it and really I wanted answers but I needed someone to engage me and tell me listen, I've got a resource for you that's getting hope you tell people more about your faith and engage them in a way that will answer those intellectual questions but also point them to Jesus Christ. It's called person of interest written by J Warner Wallace. What I love about this book.

Jim is you've illustrated that your graphic designer and almost every page has an illustration of some kind. So it really breaks it down in an understandable way is called person of interest why Jesus still matters in a world that rejects the Bible and you described it to me as a kid book or an adult elaborate on that he had the ideas that we become such a visual learners in session. Visual concerns of media that all of us are trying to figure out ways that how do we and kids books. I love them because they are about 50-50 text to illustration sovereign a few kids books now. So now I think about writing this book. I just no longer satisfied even as an adult would not been able to see the case like I can make this visual yeah I tried table, 82% of of these are scientists in the 15th century were Christians. What I showed you every one of them in the election.

You know that's that's really that sorrowful night journey to see it, so the numbers don't mean as much is actually seeing that they very hard scientist. So we want to be able to provide something that I cannot hit a girl again were doing in the USA sometimes is the Bible's hard places in the Bible that needs someone to translate the assignment and make them accessible to us. That's what you do so well were trying to use a similar hear difficult concepts. How do we throw them in a way that people can catch them, well if you want to get a copy of this we can send it to you for your gift of any size whatever you send will use to continue our ministry here in the radio through a new beginning and the title of this book again is person of interest, written by former detective J. Warner Wallace you get so much out of this book personally but also what a powerful tool in helping you share the Lord with others through the convincing text and the practical illustrations will begin to see the uniqueness of Christ and his plan of salvation and will send you this brand-new book person of interest to thank you for partnering with us, so new beginning can continue coming your way each day.

It's only through listener support that's possible and we won't be mentioning this much longer. So please contact us today at a new beginning.

Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24 hour phone number 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org we know is true that we reap what we sow.

The Bible tells us that next time. A good example as pastor Greg brings us the story of David and Bathsheba join us here on a new beginning and end before we go. Here's pastor Greg once again from today's message how to lead others to Jesus. I like to close right now with the prayer that I would like to leave you this is a prayer we are asking God to empower you with the spirit to give you boldness to be his representative. I would ask if you would like to for you to pray this prayer out loud after me asking the Holy Spirit to fill is asking the Holy Spirit to empower us know what is to pray this prayer mean that I believe God will hear and answer this prayer because Jesus said that the father would give the Holy Spirit to those that ask let's ask right now pray this after me if you would like to pray this now Lord Jesus called me to go into all the world and preach the gospel that I've not done the job I should do but I want to. I need your help. I need your power. So I ask you now cheese to bill me with the Holy Spirit give me all the power I need give me boldness like I've never had before. Help me to be outspoken for you use need to change this world.

Start by changing Jesus name I father you've heard us pray that prayer, we mean it. Phyllis empower us use me an opportunity come to us will see that open door will pop the question, so to speak, will initiate the conversation will share our testimony uses for your glory. Yes, Jesus name, amen and thanks for left into a new beginning.

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