"Reaching Out Together: Part 2" 

During the next 40 days we’re looking at two things. One is deepening the sense of community within our church family; two, reaching out to the community around our church family. Deepening the sense of love within and reaching out in love to the community around our church family. We’re learning to build stronger relationships in our church and reach out in relationships of love to those around our church. The reason we’re doing this is because the Bible says We’re better together.

You don’t need a hundred friends but you do need three or four or five or six that are really there with you. The tragedy is most people today don't have a single intimate friend. (Men, we are worst of all on this one.) Now we’ve got a lot of acquaintances but we don’t have anybody looking out for our spiritual growth, helping us, who’s saying I'm going to be there no matter what happens in your life. So we’re going to be looking at how to deepen relationships. And why relationships go bad and how do you turn them around.

Last week Steve Shoaff and I spoke on, "Why do we need each other?" If you missed that message I’d encourage you to go online to our website and read or download the message. It’s foundational for everything we’re looking at the next six weeks. And I hope that you’ve started your devotional reading from Better Together. Also, in small groups and Sunday School classes we’re looking at six videos and discussing on building stronger relationships.

Today we’re going to go all the way to the end. The last purpose of your life is, You were made for a mission. God wants you to share His love with other people – with your friends, with your family, with the people you work with – and show His love to those who don’t know Christ yet. Who are not in His family.

Why does He want us to do that? Because God wants everybody in His family. God has never made a person He didn’t love. God has never made a person that Jesus Christ didn’t die for. So God wants us to share that good news.

In the book of Philippians Paul says this. "You are standing together, side by side with one strong purpose – to tell the Good News." Circle "standing together" and circle "telling the good news." That’s what we’re looking at today. How do we do it together? How do I share with my friends that God loves them? And how I do it in a partnership with other people?

We’re going to look at seven ways to partner with other believers, with other people in the family of God, to help reach your friends, your relatives, the people you care about most with the good news. We’re going to look at it in a little acrostic I spelled out P-A-R-T-N-E-R. How to partner to share God’s love.

Before you can do that though, you have to make a choice. You have to make the choice that I'm going to be unselfish. I'm going to start caring not just about my own life, but I'm going to start caring about other people’s lives. I'm going to care about telling them about the good news. That’s the choice. Will I choose to do the right thing? Will I choose to be loving? Will I choose to follow what God wants?

Let’s get started on talking about how we can PARTNER together to share God’s love.

The first thing you do is you ask your small group to pray for your friends, who don’t really know God in a personal way yet. You ask them to pray and you pray together. You can’t force anybody to love God. But you can pray for them. Prayer can activate and arouse an apathetic heart. And prayer can change a stubborn heart. Prayer can do whatever God can do.

What are we supposed to pray about as a group? One of the things in Colossians 3:4. The Bible says this "Pray for us that God will give us the opportunity to tell people His message." So we pray for God’s opportunity to share with our friends and our loved ones and people we care about the great news about God.

The first action step in sharing the good news: make a group prayer list and start praying for your friends and family who do not know the Lord. And pray for one another’s friends, too. Everybody starts praying for people you know and love will begin to have a lot of people praying for them. There’s power in that.

Before you can share the good news with anybody you have to establish a relationship with them. Before you can reach them you must relate to them. You find out, What do we have in common? What do we like to talk about? Common experiences, common interests, common needs, common hurts. Do we like to fish, to golf, to cook, to shop, to sleep. Do we have kids? Are we interested in soccer or baseball or basketball or whatever?

So the second step, if you’re getting your group to reach out or if you want to reach out as an individual, is to make a list of the things you have in common. You ought to talk with the people in your small group and say, "What do we like to do?" Make a list of all the things. Share it with each other. Then you ask, Who do we know who would also like to do that who isn’t yet a believer? Which of my co-workers or neighbors would like to do that?

I know a lot of you who are Reitz football fans. You love to go to all football games. Here’s an idea: Buy two extra tickets and invite some unchurched friends to attend with you. That way every time you go to a game you take two new people with you to the game. You go and have a good time at the football game. Then at the end they say, "Did you enjoy this? This same group goes together to church every Sunday morning. Would you like to join us?" They’re normal people. That’d be fun! So you just have fun with them.

That’s finding common interests of people they’d like to do. So you pray together, you appeal to common interests…

You have to have the right motive in reaching out to your neighbors and friends. Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." You know the old cliché. People don't care what we know until they know we care. So everything we do is out of love.

Why are we doing this? Why are we even talking about reaching out to our community? Why don’t we just focus on us? We’ve got enough people in our church. Who don’t we just focus making the love in our church warmer and stronger. Why in the world should we focus on the community around our church. Why would we do that?

We do it for two reasons: First, We have the greatest news in the world to share. If I had the cure for cancer I’d be shouting it in the streets. But I’ve got something better than that. The key to purpose in life and eternal life. What is the good news anyway?

The good news is this – you’re not an accident. You were made by God and He has a purpose and plan for your life. You were made to last forever. God wants you to live forever with Him in eternity. But He wants you to get to know Him here on earth. He knows and loves everything about you and He wants you to know and love Him too. Jesus Christ came to earth so you could get to know what God is like. He died on the cross and paid for all your sins so that everything you’ve ever done wrong is completely wiped out and forgotten and forgiven. He gives you a purpose for living in the present. And He gives you a home in heaven in the future.

That’s good news! Where else am I going to hear that kind of news? It’s not like we’re trying to give people rabies or something! This is the best news in the world. Everybody needs to hear it. So that’s the first reason why we focus out on the community, not just on us.

Second, we reach out because the Bible says, "God is love." When God comes into your life you start loving other people. In fact, I’ll be real honest with you. If you don’t love anybody else, you don't have God in your life. You don’t! You may think you do but you don’t. The Bible says in 1 John 4, "God is love." And you can’t have somebody as big as God come into your life and not change you. All of a sudden you start becoming less selfish and more loving.

What is sharing the good news? It’s one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread. That’s it. I'm not any better than anybody else. We just pass it on.

Do what the Bible talks about in 1 Peter 2:9 "You are God’s instruments to do His work and to speak out for Him and to tell others of the night and day difference He has made for you." Tell your story.

Jesus said, "You’re to be My witnesses." When I hear the word "witness," I think of a courtroom. Most of us do. It’s a perfect picture of what God’s asking us to do to make a difference in the world. We’re to be His witness. He doesn’t ask us to be the attorney, arguing the case. He doesn’t ask us to be the judge, judging other people. He says, I want you to be My witnesses.

What does a witness do? A witness just says, Here’s what I’ve seen, here’s what I heard. A witness just tells the story of what God’s done in their life, to other people. I think a lot of us can think of a lot of different stories that we have, a lot of different things that God has done in our lives.

Here’s an action step with this. It’s a simple action step. Write out your story and share it with your group. Start there. Start with your group. With the people that you know that are close to you. Some of you have never even shared the story about what God has done in your life with someone in your group.

The fifth way to help other people experience God’s love is...

5. Nurture friendships.

Just build friendships with them so you can build a bridge between your heart and theirs and Jesus Christ can walk across. This step takes a little bit more time and effort. It takes a little more energy to build a friendship. You don’t just do it overnight. But the Bible says in Romans 12 "Be friendly with everybody. Don’t be proud and feel that you are smarter than others. Make friends with ordinary people." You are the only Bible some people will ever read. You represent Jesus Christ to them.

God says I want you to reach out to people and nurture friendships. The Bible says you’re to be salt and light in the world. You’re to penetrate the world with the goodness of God.

Here’s your action step. Bring a friend to your group or to church services. During 40 Days bring somebody who is not yet a follower of Christ. Maybe they’re considering it. Maybe they’re not even considering it. But you just like them. Invite them to church or to your group. You say, I don’t have any friends who’d like to come to my Bible study group! Are you kidding? I don't know if you saw the recent Gallup Poll. He took a survey and found thirty four million Americans said "I’d go to church but I’ve just never been asked." Thirty four million! Some of those people you work with. Some of them live on your block. They’re far more willing to come to a church services or a small group than you’re willing to ask them. You think of a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker you care about and invite them to church, invite them to your group.

6. Expect God to act.

I don't know if you realize this but God works in people’s hearts when we expect Him to do so. The Bible says, "According to your faith it will be done unto you."

The greatest pastor of the nineteenth century was a guy named Charles Spurgeon. He was the pastor of the largest church in the world at that time in London, England. He’d often speak to about ten thousand people. Many people came to know Christ through his life. One day a young man came to him and said, "Mr. Spurgeon, I don’t understand it. Whenever you talk to people about the Lord they always end to open up their lives. They tend to accept Christ. When I talk to people about the Lord nobody’s interested. Nobody comes to Christ. What’s wrong?" Spurgeon said, "Young man, you don’t expect people to come to Jesus Christ every time you talk about Him, do you?" He said, "Of course not." Spurgeon said, "That’s your problem."

Here’s the point. Never give upon anybody. You never get discouraged. Nobody’s hopeless. You trust God. The Bible says this in Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Some of you, you’ve been praying for some time for your boyfriend to become believer, or your girlfriend to become believer. Or you’ve been praying for your husband or your wife or your parent or child or somebody you care about, a relative, a worker, a good close friend. You’ve been praying for them and you don’t see any evidence that two years later they’re any closer in their journey to God that they were two years ago. You just don't see any difference. What do you need to do? You need to start praying in faith expecting God to act. Faith is certain of what we do not see.

Lauren: I’ll be sharing my testimony with you. I'm twelve years old and have been attending

The Bible says, "Whatever you do or say let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus." The fact is God specifically put people in your life and you are God’s representative to them. If not you, who? God put you there, why would He put two there. He put you there to share with your relatives, your loved one, your friend, your co-worker. How will the people know unless we tell them? God isn’t going to write it in the sky for them. He’s not going to send them a telegram. He has sent you. He’s sent you to tell your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your family, whoever. He’s sent you.

The most dangerous prayer you could pray is two words: Use me. I dare you to pray it. I dare you to pray it during the next forty days. "God, use me! Use me to show Your love to people who don’t know You love them. Use me to show Your purpose to people who don’t know that You have a purpose for their life."

So here’s my challenge to you. If you’re in small group – if you’re not you need to get in one this week. Begin praying for people you know who do not have a relationship with god, who are outside the community of faith, who are alone.

Prayer:

Now you pray. Say Dear God, I realize that You’ve put specific people in my life because You want me to share Your love with them. Today I accept my mission. I want You to use me. Help me to be concerned about people around me who don’t know You. Help me to take these seven steps of partnering with my small group. I realize that they’re not going to know unless we show them. Help me to remember that no one is hopeless. And nobody is beyond reach of Your love. And that people who I think are so far from You really Your love is still farther and can reach out to them. So in faith I ask You to help our group reach one more for Jesus during the next 40 days. In Your name we pray. Amen.