Keys to Effective Rescues

Thanks, Al. For introducing the message for us this morning. You know, in recent years, there have been a number of rescues that have captured our nation's attention. Rescues of people from very dangerous situations. We've pictured a few of them on this title slide for you. Upper left hand corner, who can forget the rescue of Jessica McClure, the little 18-month-old baby who fell down on a bandend well shaft and in Texas. In 1987, and the whole nation was captured by that event and had television on all day. It was one of those unlikely events that captured the attention of our nation. Of course, in the upper right hand corner, the World Trade Center on 9-11 and the incredible rescue efforts by our fire and police personnel in New York City. Lower left hand corner, the nine Pennsylvania minors remember that one in 2002. Those miraculous deliveries and rescues of those nine minors. And then the lower right hand corner, the attempted rescue of the Sega minors, the 13 minors who were trapped earlier this year in our own state. There are four things that are true of any rescue operation like this. Four things that are always true. Number one, there are some people in danger who will die if the rescue is not successful. In each of these cases, in many others that you could probably think of, there are people who are in great danger. And they're going to die if the rescuers don't get to them, they will die. The second thing that is true of any rescue is that there are usually obstacles in the way that make it difficult to reach those people. In each of these cases, for sure, huge obstacles in the way that made it difficult for rescuers to get to them. But the third thing that's true of any rescue is that rescuers will take enormous risks to overcome those obstacles to reach people who need to be rescued. Sometimes the risks are so enormous that they are willing to lay down their own lives in order to try to reach someone who needs to be rescued. And the fourth thing that's true of any rescue is that the reason why rescuers take those kind of risks is that saving a life is worth any risk that must be taken. You know, I think rescue is such a beautiful word picture of evangelism or a rescue operation is such a beautiful word picture. One of the greatest metaphors I know of of evangelism is a rescue operation because the same four things are true in any spiritual rescue mission. And Jesus illustrates that for us perfectly in John chapter 4. But invite your attention to John chapter 4 this morning, our text for today where we find that Jesus gives us a model of spiritual rescues. What he does is he encounters a woman here who is in deep trouble. This woman is in deep trouble. She will die spiritually if someone doesn't reach her, if someone doesn't rescue her. But as is true with any rescue, there are tremendous obstacles standing in the way between her and the rescuer Jesus. Think of them. There are lots of obstacles in the way and there are religious obstacles. Jesus is a Jew, she's a Samaritan. There are huge religious obstacles there. The Samaritans don't worship like the Jews. They don't believe all the Old Testament was God's Word. They only accepted the first five books, the books of Moses. So there are huge religious obstacles here. There are also gender obstacles. Jesus speaking to a woman in public in that day, that was not considered the appropriate thing to do. Most men did not speak to women in public. That's true in many parts of the Middle East even today. So there are gender obstacles here. There are racial obstacles. Jesus is a Jew, she is a Samaritan. The Jews don't like the Samaritans. They consider them an inferior race because that part of Israel was populated when Israel was in exile. And one of the kings of Babylon brought in a bunch of people and settled that part, actually king of Assyria, did that. They settled that part and they intermarried with all kinds of other folks. So the Jews just looked down on the Samaritans. There are racial obstacles here to overcome. But there are also moral obstacles. You have a woman who has a very sinful past and the spotless son of God who has never sinned. There are huge moral obstacles here. But Jesus is willing to risk whatever it takes to go through those barriers and overcome those obstacles to reach this woman with the knowledge of who he is and what he can give her by way of eternal life. He is willing to take the risk to overcome those obstacles. And the reason is, as is true in any rescue, saving one life is worth any risk that it takes to make that rescue. And delivering one life from the pit of hell, delivering one life from a Christless eternity is worth whatever it risks because people matter to God. This woman mattered to God. And it was worth whatever risk it took to reach out to her. And at the end of the day, she comes to know Jesus as her personal Messiah and she introduces a bunch of her friends from her hometown to him as well. How did that happen? What are the keys to that kind of effective rescue? Well, Jesus following what he does, just looking at the way he interacts with this woman, gives us at least six keys to effective rescue. And so that we don't have a two hour service this morning, I'm going to just look at three of them today. Aren't you happy? Do I hear an amen? Let's go look at three of them today. Three keys to effective rescues. Number one, enter their world. Enter their world. Let's begin reading in chapter four of John, verse one. The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Although in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee and notice verse four. Now he had to go through Samaria. Why go through Samaria? Why does verse four say he had to go through Samaria? Because technically he didn't have to. Now obviously Samaria, if you're familiar with the geography of the Holy Land, if you're not, I'll give you a quick geography lesson. Judea is in south. Galilee is in the north. Right between them is Samaria. So technically, logically, as the crow flies, if you're going to go from Judea in the south to Galilee in the north, you go through Samaria. But hardly any Jews did that, as I mentioned it last week. Jews did not do that because they hated the Samaritans. It didn't get along very well. And so they would take a detour. A detour that would start east across the Jordan River, then go up north and then cut back west into Galilee. They did not want to go through Samaria. So why go through Samaria? Why did Jesus do it? Why does the text say that he had to go through Samaria? It's really very simple. If you're going to reach Samaritans, you've got to go to Samaria. It's that simple. If you're going to reach Samaritans, you've got to go to Samaria. And that leads me to a principle that I think all of us understand when we watch rescues on television. And that is that rescues are always on the dying person's turf. You think about it for a minute. I mean, it's a no-brainer, right? So it didn't take me a long time to figure this out. You think about it for a moment. A firefighter does not say to people or have broadcast over the radio. If you folks can make it down to the fire station, then we'll take care of you here. No, they don't do that. They go into burning buildings. They go where the people who are dying are. When there's a huge earthquake and buildings crumble. You know, the rescuers don't say, you know, we got this neat little rescue center over here in the other part of the city. If you guys can make it over here, we'll give you CPR. We'll take care of you and get you. They don't say that. They don't do that, obviously. I mean, life guards on beaches don't say, I've got this nice little life guard booth here, little platform. And I'm staying right here. If you can make it to shore, then I'll pump the water out of your lungs. They don't say that. Obviously, they go in where the people are. EMTs don't say, you know, we've got this nice new building down here on staff or drive this new rescue squad center. It's beautiful. If you folks can get here, we'll take you the rest of the way to the hospital. You know, obviously, we realize that's not the way rescues work. They go to the scene of the accident. They go to the tragedy. They do whatever's needed risk their lives to go to where the dying people are. That leads me to the spiritual principle that Jesus is illustrating for us here. And that is, in evangelism, we must go seek the lost. We must go seek the lost. We can't expect them to come to our turf. We can't expect to say, okay, we're open Sunday mornings. You can come to 830, you can come at 945, you can come at 11. We're open. Come on in. We can't expect them to come to our turf. That's not really a biblical model. The biblical model is go seek the lost. We can't just expect them to show up here. We've got to go where the lost are. We've got to enter their world. Jesus said something very profound at the end of the Zacchaeus story in Luke 19 and verse 10. The Bible says, for the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost. There was no saving if there was no seeking. There was going after the lost person first and then the salvation occurred. You remember the story if you've read the story of Zacchaeus? Jesus is walking through the main street of Jericho. He looks up in the tree and he sees this man and he says to him, as he seeks him out, he says to him, today I must go to your house. So he gets down. What does he do? He goes to where Zacchaeus lives. He goes to him. That's a model for us what he's doing here in John chapter 4. That's why I am absolutely convinced that the best method, biblically, of evangelism is lifestyle evangelism. You know why? Because it means that we live evangelism as a lifestyle. We're on call 24-7. Lifestyle evangelism has been criticized by some people who say, well, all you're talking about is, you know, living kind of nice and hopefully they'll get the picture. That's not it at all. Lifestyle evangelism is being on call all the time, living out evangelism as a lifestyle. So that God has put me in a position where lost people are. You see, God has already positioned you where lost people are. They're in your school, they're in your workplace, they're in your neighborhood, they're in the marketplace where you do business every week. And we're already positioned where the lost people are. So we need to build relationships with those people that God's already brought into our sphere of influence. Has already brought into our little world. We need to build relationships with those people. We need to seize opportunities to share the gospel with them or to share maybe a part of our testimony with them. We need to seize the opportunities to love them and to serve them and to do good or to sow a little bit of seed along the way or to water that seed along the way. What to do, whatever it takes to take advantage of those opportunities. And yes, some of that may be to invite them to a church event or service. Now here's our philosophy of evangelism at Johnson Chapel. I've preached this for 10 years. I've been here 16, just called on a few years after that. But I've preached this at least 10 years. This is our philosophy of evangelism. And I'll continue to preach this and pound at home until we're all doing it. And that is that we ought to all be reaching out to our neighbors and friends at work and so forth. But the church partners with you in at least three ways. One is our Sunday morning services which are more evangelistic in nature. People will hear the gospel. They'll know how to be saved typically at any Sunday morning service. They'll hear something about the gospel. Second way we do it is through what we call bridge events. Bridge events or those events and you've heard this before. Many of you have bridge events or those events that we sponsor as a church that bridge the church to the community. There are events that are designated for the community like our Easter egg hunt where we have all kinds of kids in from the community. And their parents bring them. So we have folks from our church that are here talking to those parents getting to know who they are, getting information on them. Hopefully opportunities to witness or follow up. We give the gospel to every one of those kids when they go through one of the rooms where they gather stuff. So it's a great bridge event or like the Halloween alternative we do in the fall. Where we have a bunch of kids in here again. We had a church full of kids last year. And their parents are here again. We have an opportunity to get them the gospel. It may be a Christmas program with the choir or something else. It's an event that bridges the church to the community and says, come on. Let's let's let you know what the gospel is all about. So we have bridge events where then we have target ministries for you that you can invite your lost friends to a target ministry is a ministry that is designed to meet a specific need that people have in our community. And by meeting that need we have the opportunity to show them the love of Christ and introduce them to the Savior who loves them more than we could ever love them. So it's like it's like a divorce care. You may have a friend that's going through a divorce and just absolutely shattered. You could say, hey, you know, we got this program at church on Wednesday night. I think it would really help you if you'd come. I'll go with you. You see, it's an opportunity to invite a person to a church ministry that is designed for outreach. It's designed to reach out to the community and say, here's something we believe can help meet a need. But it will also introduce you to the great, the great healer of hearts. Jesus Christ. It's like grief share. Someone loses someone in their family. And you might say, hey, we got this program at church. It's on Wednesday nights. It's going right now. You know, we want to reach out and help people that are going through the struggles you're going through. And so come, I'll go with you. And they'll hear the gospel in grief share. It's like mobs. Maybe you know a mom of a young child, a preschool child. And they're pulling their hair out. You know, they're thinking, how in the world am I going to make it till this kid ever gets to school. And it's tough and it's difficult. And you say, hey, we got this program at church. Twice a month, you can take three hours and just meet with other moms who have similar struggles and issues. And you can work a craft with them. And you can hear someone talk about a parenting issue or something that will help you. And you'd love it. I'll go with you. Come, come. Let's go. Or it may be a men's fellowship breakfast. We have a lot of unsafe guys that come to our men's fellowship breakfast. Once a month, we have 60, 70 guys at a fellowship breakfast. And maybe you know someone likes to eat a lot. And so you can say, hey, we got this great breakfast at church. It out does show nice. Come. And you'll hear a testimony. You hear the gospel there. You don't necessarily tell them that, but they'll hear it when they come. Come on. Let's go to great meal. Great. Great guys. Let's do that. Or it may be the ladies craft night on Tuesday night. That's not just a time for ladies to get to the church. For ladies to get together and say, oh, I like to make these little things. It's a time for ladies to get together in fellowship and bring an unsafe friend who may have an interest in crafts as well. That's the whole purpose for those things. They're called target ministries. They're designed to be outreach ministries. DNAs. We have unsafe folks come to our DNA ministry. That's for senior citizens called don't mention age. The deal there. So we have a lot of folks that come to that and some of them are not believers. And you may have a friend that you could invite. To a DNA activity or an awana ministry where their kids could get plugged into a great children's ministry or divorce care for kids or a stronghold event for college students or a teen activity. There are lots of opportunities to for us to partner with you to say, okay, you're working with this neighbor. You've got this burden of this interest and a coworker. Here's something you can bring them to where they're here with the gospel. And that kind of partners with you to do your work of evangelism personally and yet we can work together. I want to show you how one guy decided he would become serious about doing lifestyle evangelism, living out evangelism as his lifestyle every day. I want to show you how one guy did his name is Wes. And we're going to watch a little bit of his story. Just about a minute and a half of his story. Let's take a look at it. For years I was a Christian by name and not really by practice so much. I really didn't know what it really meant to have a relationship with Christ until I was in my early 20s. I just developed a desire and a hunger just to be a light and have others come to know Christ in a real and personal way. And just this calling on my life to be active as a Christian and live it as a lifestyle and not just on a Sunday or once or twice a week type of deal. My life when I started this apartment life ministry where we live in the apartment community and give 80 hours a month to the community to help develop that sense of community in the apartment complex. And through that we were able to build relationships and start Bible studies and hopefully assimilate people into a local church. It's an incredible opportunity to serve a family just to be in service together. And it's just a good lesson in living the life of the Christian. It's a lifestyle, evangelism, it's building relationships with people around you that live next door across the way. And for us it's just really a challenge to us to live out our faith on a very practical and real level. Now that's just how one guy does it or any number of ways you could do that. It may be in your neighborhood or your office complex or where you work or maybe with friends you know or maybe in some other way that you are reaching out to people entering their world, living among them so that you can reach them with the gospel. Enter their world. That's what Jesus did. He went to Samaria because if you're going to reach Samaritans you've got to go to Samaria. Second principle Jesus teaches us about effective rescues is to focus on one person. Let's begin reading again in verse 5. So he came to a town in Samaria called Cicar near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there and Jesus tired as he was from the journey sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. Now once you notice the strategy of Jesus. Once you notice what he did. Jesus did not go into the town with his disciples. He didn't go into the village and start preaching on the street corner or knocking on house door to door. That's fine. And that's okay for those who have a calling to that ministry. Jesus had a different strategy though. He focused on one person that he met in the very normal course of life. Jesus is sitting at a well because he's tired and he's thirsty and here comes a woman out of the town to draw water from that well. And he focuses on that one person. Now I know that Jesus spoke to crowds of people. Jesus spoke to multitudes at times. I'm well aware of that. But when you look through the gospels you'll find a number of times Jesus focused even in crowds of people focused on one person. I mean the centurion and his son who was ill. Jesus focused on that one person. Jairus and his daughter who was dying and eventually died. Jesus focused on that one need for that moment. And even on his way there's a woman who comes up and grabs the hymn of his garment believing she'll be healed and she was. And Jesus stops in the midst of a crowd to focus on that one person. And then there's Nicodemus and there's Zacchaeus and there and you could go on and on. There are all kinds of situations like this where Jesus focuses on an individual, one person. Now what does that mean to us? In this story he focuses on one person since his disciples off into the village. He stays and focuses on this one woman. And is it an interesting that through this one woman many others were reached. So what does that tell us? I believe it tells us this biblical principle. Evangelism is a multiplication process. Evangelism is a multiplication process. You see God may not be asking you to reach your whole office or your whole school or your whole neighborhood. He may be asking you simply to focus on one person and then he'll take that multiply. He has a wonderful way of doing that, doesn't he? I think a lot about Andrew. Andrew was the disciple who seemed to do this kind of thing. Focus on one person. Andrew met Jesus and he says, man, Peter's got to meet Jesus. So he goes and gets Peter and he introduces Peter to Jesus. Well, Peter will end up preaching on the day of Pentecost and 3,000 people will come to Christ. But Peter wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been for the Andrew who focused on one person. Do you remember another story with Andrew in the Bible? Jesus is speaking to a great crowd of people and he says to his disciples, have him sit down, we're going to feed him. And the disciples say, we can't feed this many people and Philip is over there figuring out when he's calculated how much it's going to take. We don't have that much money in the treasury. We can't do that. Jesus says, just sit him down. We're going to feed him. You know what Andrew is doing? Andrew is out looking for some food. And he finds one little boy who's got a lunch. He's got two little pieces of fish and five little pieces of bread. That's two fish sandwiches and another piece of bread for dessert. That's it. That's all he's got. And he brings him to Jesus. You know what Jesus did with that, don't you? He multiplied it. Andrew found one little boy and Jesus took what that one little boy had multiplied it to feed thousands of people. So God has a wonderful way of taking what we do when we focus on one person and multiplying it to reach others. I was reading a book this week by a youth pastor reading a section of it and he told the story of a girl in his youth group in New York City by the name of Janet. He said, I challenged this youth group to each of them focus on one person they wanted to reach for Christ that year. Just one. Just focus on one person you want to reach for Christ. And after the meeting, he said, Janet came up to me and said, you know the Lord's laid Susan on my heart. And this guy who was writing the book said, you know, when I heard that, I thought, oh boy, that's just not going to work. You know, Susan is this star pupil in school cheerleader type, real popular involved in all kinds of school activities. And Janet, she's an average student. She's kind of a quiet senior. You know, how are these two going to connect? But he didn't say that. Obviously he said, okay, you know, go for it. I'll be praying for you. She came back three weeks later. Susan was with her this youth meeting. Susan, three weeks after that, gave her heart to Christ. And that evening went home and told her sister Debbie, who was a cheerleader at the school, you know, wildly popular and all that stuff. Told her sister Debbie, what had happened to her that she'd accepted Christ? Debbie gave her heart to Christ that night. And you know what happened? Janet challenged both Susan and Debbie. Let's all three of us focus on one other person that we really want to win the Christ. We pray for them. We'll do everything we can when we have opportunity to share Christ with them. And this guy said that the end of that school year, 38 teenagers in that class had come to Christ. Now I wonder what would happen if all of us got that serious about focusing on one person? We can do that. Everybody in this room this morning can focus on one person. Think of them. You may think of them this afternoon, but think of them sometime. Think of one person that you want to win the Christ. Maybe a coworker, maybe a family member, maybe a neighbor, maybe a friend from high school days. One person you would like to win for Christ and focus on that one. The Lord may not be asking you to reach your whole school. Just one. You never know what God may do with that. If everyone of us in this room would reach one more person. You see the multiplication process? If that person reach one more person. So focus on one. Get that person in mind and begin thinking of how you're going to reach out to that person and pray for that person and share Christ with that person. Focus on one. We've kind of adopted as our theme this year. Each one reach one. We can do that. Each one of us can reach out to one more person this year. And hopefully see that person come to Christ or at least move some steps closer to coming to Christ. Each one, reach one. Pick out the one you want to reach this year. Think about that person. Get the work. Focus on one. Third principle, Jesus illustrates for us in this story. Third key to effective rescues is create spiritual curiosity. Now we've already talked about this one a couple of times. In fact, we talked about it when we looked at Matthew chapter 5. I just remind you of this verse. Let's take a look at it. Matthew 5.13. You are the salt of the earth, Jesus said. You talk about the salt losing its saltiness and so forth. But the concept of the salt of the earth means that we are designed by God to live the kind of lives that creates thirst like salt does in other people's lives. Except in our case, it's supposed to be creating a thirst for spiritual things. So we're creating curiosity. We also saw this concept when we were in first Peter 3. Remember first Peter 3.15. But in your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. Now what Peter is saying here is I'm presupposing that as Bible believing Christians who love Christ and are passionate for him, you're going to live the kind of lifestyle that demonstrates hope. You know, focused on heaven. And when you live that kind of lifestyle, people are going to get curious. They're going to start asking questions. And when they do, you be ready. I mean, seize those opportunities to give the reason for the hope that's in you. Now we've already seen that principle, but I want you to see how Jesus illustrates this so beautifully in this story. Let's pick up our reading in verse 9. The Samaritan woman said to him, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? The Jews do not associate with Samaritan. John adds that little in parenthesis there to explain why she asked that question. Jesus says, ask her for a drink. He's already got her curiosity up. She's curious. Why would you even talk to him? For one thing, you're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan, you're a man. I'm a woman. It just doesn't fit. Doesn't work. Most people wouldn't do that. Why are you talking to me? He's already raised her curiosity level. Look at verse 10. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Now he's going to raise all kinds of questions with that statement. Look at her response in verse 11. Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with. You know, I can just kind of see her say, it's kind of obvious. No brainer. You don't have anything to draw water with. You don't have anything to draw water with. And the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Already, she's asking questions are curious. You talk about giving me water. She's looking around. You don't have a bucket. What are you going to draw water with? Question, curious. More questions in verse 12. Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself as did also his sons and his flocks and herds? I mean, Jesus made a statement in verse 10 that must have sent question marks going off in her mind when he said, if you knew who it is that asked you. And so she's curious. Who are you anyway? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He's the one that dug this well. You're greater than him. You think you can draw water without anything to draw with? Who are you anyway? He's really setting her up with the curiosity already there so that she'll be ready to receive the gospel. Look, verse 13. Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water, I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. Now that's a statement that kind of comes out of the blue. He's telling her, I'm talking about an entirely different kind of water. And if you drink this water, you will never thirst again. Now, all kinds of question marks are exploding in her mind. But look at the statement she makes in verse 15. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. Now, she's still confused as to the kind of water he's talking about. But boy is her mind racing. She says, hey, whatever you're talking about, I want it. So I want to have to keep coming out here and draw in water. She is really into this conversation now. You see how masterfully Jesus drew her into conversation? And he did it by arousing her curiosity. Now, there are three ways that we can arouse people's curiosity, at least. There are obviously many more. Time will only give us opportunity to talk about three of them quickly. Number one, start with common ground. And that's exactly what Jesus did. Start with common ground. Remember all these barriers that are between Jesus and this woman, all the gaps, racial, social, gender, moral, all those gaps that are between these two people. If most people, if most of us were in this situation, you know what we'd do? You know what I'm afraid I'd do? I'm sitting there, I'm tired. I'm thirsty. I've got a lot of my mind that the Cypher is going to get food thinking about what we're going to be doing next, where we're going, this woman comes to the well. And she's going to draw a water. And of course, Jesus would know all about her anyway. But I wouldn't. And so she's coming out to draw a water. And I've got a lot of my mind. And she's by herself. Okay, I kind of turn the other way and she'll drop her bucket and get her water and go on. And never a word will be spoken between the two of us. Jesus didn't let that opportunity go by. With all of those barriers, all of those obstacles between them, Jesus looked for common ground. He started with common ground. Why was he there at the well? He's tired and he's thirsty. Why was she coming to the well to get water? With all those barriers between them, there's one thing they have in common. What is it? Water. Water. She's coming to get water. He would want some water. There's where you start. You got some common ground. So he starts with that. Would you give me a drink? And that's what started all. So we need to find common ground with people. And that leads to, if you know who I was, I'd give you water. And then she's into another question. And he's answering that question and on the conversation goes. There are lots of other ways to do this, but find some common ground. The person you're thinking of, or we'll think of maybe this afternoon. The person you're thinking of, what do you have in common with them? You both like to go out to breakfast? Your guys bring them to a men's fellowship breakfast. You both like crafts. Your ladies bring them to a craft night. You like cars? Use that to start talking and talk about cars for a while. That will lead to other questions and other things about your life and his life. You have children in common, maybe the same age children? Mom's talking about your children. Open some doors to begin conversing with that person, building a relationship. And that will lead, God will let it lead to other things where you will eventually have an opportunity to let your light shine, maybe share the gospel, share your testimony, invite them to a church, target ministry or bridge event or service. It's something that will help you follow up on that developing friendship. But start with common ground. There's a second way to create spiritual curiosity. And that is show the love of Christ by meeting a need. I'm talking about kindness here. I'm talking about service. I'm talking about what Jesus said in Matthew 5, 16. When you said in the same way, let your light shine before men. That they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. So that person again that you've got in mind, think about what need do they have that I could start serving them, helping them with? What need do they have? Do they have a need for a babysitter? I'll start there. I can do that. Do they have a need for food to be brought in because the family members been sick? I can start there. Do they have a need for transportation? Maybe they're cars in the shop or they've got a bummer of a car and they need some help getting to town one day. I can do that. I can move in to serve to show some love in that way. Do they need help with yard work? Okay, I can do that. I can help them with that. Show the love of Christ. Somebody been sick and need a visit. Do you just need to give a listening ear? Do they just need someone to talk to that will listen to them about whatever it is? Maybe you haven't common. What about their special day? Their birthday, their anniversary, special days that come up in their lives. Celebrate those with them. Make a big deal of it. Whatever you can do to show the love of Christ in a world where everyone is busy, that speaks volumes to people. It speaks volumes to people just to reach out and show the love of Christ and opens such doors for ministry further on. And you know what else? If we're not doing that, it can close doors too. I want us to look again at an illustration of this. Kathy's going to come and give us an illustration of what it means to show in very practical ways the love of Christ and what that could mean to someone's life. I want to give you an illustration of what it means to show the love of Christ and what that could mean to you. Well, look at that. That's really a big one back there. It's pretty though. Of course, they all are on the outside. I remember the one I went to when I was growing up. I had this huge stained glass window. Right where the preacher preached. I remember as a kid, I used to think that he was an angel. Or maybe even God. And we were there every single Sunday. Third row, left of center. Carters were behind us. David's sins. Yeah, carters were behind us. David's sins were in front of us every week without fail. And it didn't matter what time Billy got home from Saturday night date. He went to church with us. Now dad and mom Lisa, me and Billy. Dad. Dad was a deacon and an usher and a substitute Sunday school teacher. Mom was a member of the ladies circle and she sang soprano in the choir. Billy was the president of the youth group and Lisa and me were just cute kids. And I remember that I was a little bit older than my family. The perfect family. Third row, left of center. Every single Sunday. Until that day. I'll never forget that evening. Mom called the kids. Three of us into the kitchen. Her eyes were red and bloodshot. We knew she had been crying and she sat us down. She said there's been a problem. It's going to be okay. I'll take care of you. It's all right. Well, your dad now will. Dad's not going to be living with us anymore. I can't believe it. I was speechless. We didn't know what to say. We didn't know what to do. We just sat there. Even Billy. He always had a smart, elegant comment. He didn't know what to say or do either. Finally, one of us said, why mom? She wouldn't tell us. I think she was trying to protect us. She wouldn't tell us her husband had been unfaithful. She wouldn't tell anybody. But we knew. You see things, you hear things. Eventually we found out. Nobody else did. Your mom wasn't about to tell them. You didn't tell your family secrets in those days. No one was going to ask. So no one ever knew. All of a sudden there we were. Three growing kids without a dad. And the mom with no money making skills at all. Had she didn't give up. No sir, not mom. She learned. She worked two or three jobs sometimes just to make the ends meet. And do you know she took us to church every single Sunday. Except this time we didn't sit on the third row. We left the center. We sat in the back. The very back. Right of the side out. Could you see? We really weren't welcome there anymore. Not only did they not ask, they didn't care. As far as they were concerned. We were the divorcee with her three ragged children. Dad, he never did go back to church. And yet mom was the one branded with a scarlet letter. I remember many times we didn't have a penny tire name. You think anyone bothered to come and offer anything for us? No. A car broke down a couple of times and not one person from that place called an offer to the ride. I remember when mom got sick. We had to take her to the hospital. No one even bothered to visit her. We were going to have to go back to church. Did you have a check on us? Three kids? This is the church I'm talking about. The light of the world, the salt of the earth. That was a long time ago. When I'm all grown up now and I'm on my own, and I don't go to church anymore. And as close as I'm going to get to that place right there is a second park bench left of the sidewalk. That's just an illustration but I wonder how many people are like that. I wonder how many people out in our community have given up on God, have given up on Christ, have given up on the church because nobody reached out to them and showed them the love of Christ. How many people I wonder will spend eternity in hell because nobody met a need, nobody shared the love of Christ. So create spiritual curiosity or keep that curiosity there in young lives like we just saw by meeting a need with love and then finally be different, be different in a good way. Now the reason I've tagged that little phrase under the end of it is because a lot of people are different in a bad way. You know, there are some Christians who are so obnoxious in the way they push stuff at other people. Some Christians are so self-righteous because their view of separation teaches them that they should not be around unsaved people. Some Christians are so strange just in the way they look. I'm talking about those being different in a good way. I'm talking about in your workplace being the most conscientious, caring worker you can possibly be in that workplace. I'm talking about in your neighborhood being the kind, most kind and helpful neighbor you can possibly be. I'm talking about in your school being the most dedicated student or athlete you can be or the most winsome personality and friend you can be in your school so that people see a difference in your life, people see a difference and that will open up opportunities and give you a platform from which to speak the love of Christ. You know, when I think about rescues, rescues like Jessica McClure or the World Trade Center minors, when I think about those kind of rescues, there's one thing that impresses me more than anything else and that is the determination of the rescuers. It's not easy, they're risking their lives, but failing to try is not an option. Giving up is not an option. They will risk whatever it takes to rescue that person from danger. They will find a way to get to them. They will give the help that's needed. They will not give up even if it means their life. We need that same kind of holy determination to reach out to lost and dying people, to rescue people no matter what the obstacles are, no matter if it is inconvenient for my schedule. We need to be like Jesus and enter their world. We need to be like Jesus and focus on one person and let him take it from there. We need to be like Jesus and create spiritual curiosity in people's lives. Start with common ground, show the love of Jesus Christ. Be different so they can see it and start asking questions. We have to have that kind of holy determination to reach out to lost people. So who is it for you? Who is it for you? Who is it for you? Who is it for me? Who is that one person that I will focus on and be like Jesus to them? Would you pray with me, please? Father, we thank you for the life of Jesus and how He's such a model for us and teaching us to reach out to others. Oh, Father, I pray that you would help us to be determined to rescue lost people, to enter their world and to reach them with the love of Christ, help us to be determined to do whatever we can to reach people and not stay in our comfort zones. I pray, Father, for anyone who may be here this morning, that is not sure that if they would die today, they would go to heaven. I pray, Father, that today they would make sure and be saved in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.