Sermon Series: How Do I Invite Them?
Sermon Date: April 2, 2000
Title: "Inviting Friends and Family"
Text: John 4: 28-30, 39-44
Introduction: Illus.: 1980's MCI "Friends and Family" Promotion
Author: Pastor Tim Krupski
Theme: One of the toughest crowds to witness to are
those who know you the best. Yet, if we let Christ be our Savior and let that shine in
front of them, the Spirit will weave a powerfully convincing case for Jesus and move them
to accept his invitation for salvation through you.
1. What is Your Passion for Your Family / Friends?
2. Keys to Witnessing to the People Who Know You All-Too-Well
3. Knowing How to Succeed in Your Witness to Family and Friends
REASONS WE DON'T
WITNESS
A survey was given to those attending training sessions for the Billy Graham crusade in Detroit. One question asked, "What is your greatest hindrance to witnessing?"
Washington -- Graffiti from the 1800s discovered by workers renovating the
Washington Monument has quite a different tone from that usually found today on the sides
of buildings and subway cars.
"Whoever is the human instrument under God in the conversion of one soul, erects a monument to his own memory more lofty and enduing (sic) than this," reads the inscription which can now be viewed by visitors to the monument.
It is signed BFB. No one knows who that is, or who left the small drawings and 19th century dates on other walls.
The markings in the lobby of the monument were covered over
when it was decorated at the turn of the century. They were found when workers removed
marble wainscoting as part of a year-long $500,000 renovation which was just completed.
URGENT MESSAGE
George Sweeting, in his book The No-Guilt Guide for Witnessing, tells of a man by the name
of John Currier who in 1949 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Later he was transferred and paroled to work on a farm near Nashville, Tennessee. In 1968,
Currier's sentence was terminated, and a letter bearing the good news was sent to him. But
John never saw the letter, nor was he told anything about it. Life on that farm was hard
and without promise for the future. Yet John kept doing what he was told even after the
farmer for whom he worked had died. Ten years went by. Then a state parole officer learned
about Currier's plight, found him, and told him that his sentence had been terminated. He
was a free man.
Sweeting concluded that story by asking, "Would it matter to you if someone sent you an important message -- the most important in your life -- and year after year the urgent message was never delivered?" We who have heard the good news and experienced freedom through Christ are responsible to proclaim it to others still enslaved by sin. Are we doing all we can to make sure that people get the message?
EVEN AT OUR WORST CHRIST IS AT HIS BEST
I remember hearing of a man at sea who was very sea-sick. He went to his cabin but succumbed to the motion and had to throw open the port hole and stick his head out the window as he lost his lunch and supper. However, while this man had his head out the window he heard that a man had fallen overboard. He was wondering if he could do anything to help to save him. He laid hold of a light, and held it up on the port-hole.The drowning man was saved. When this man got over his attack of sickness he was up on deck one day, and was talking to the man who was rescued. The saved man shared his story. He said he had gone down the second time, and was just going down again for the last time, when he put out his hand. Just then, he said, some one held a light at the port-hole, and the light fell on his hand. A man caught him by the hand and pulled him into the lifeboat.It seemed a small thing to do to hold up the light; yet it saved the man's life.