Dover Assembly of God
As we approach our Invite Your One day, I wanted to show the importance of what we are trying to do.
By bringing people to introduce them to Christ and Christianity, not only are we fulfilling the Great Commission, and fulfilling the first part of our church’s vision of “Connecting (People) to God, we may also be bringing someone that may have a great impact on the gospel.
The title of today's sermon is actually a ministry of the Billy Graham Crusade. If you were a counselor at one of his crusades, you had to attend several classes and those classes were entitled “Operation Andrew”.
It’s based on John chapter 1 and that’s what we’ll look at today.
Let’s look at what is going on up to this point. John basically starts out with John the Baptist’s ministry.
John 1:6-7 NIV
He starts out preaching about the coming Messiah and gathers a following of his own. He keeps telling them that he is not the Messiah, but just a “voice in the wilderness, saying clear the way for the Messiah”.
Those are John’s words, as he quoted them from Isaiah.
As he out doing his thing, along comes Jesus.
John 1:29 NIV
So Jesus is introduced to the world at that point and begins His public ministry.
So what happens at first?
John 1:35-37 NIV
Jesus’ first 2 disciples come to Him because of John’s ministry. John clearly told them I’m not the guy, but if you stay with me, I’ll take you to him.
Here we have the first example of someone following Christ because of the life and ministry of another person. Because John the Baptist was faithful to do what was asked of him, we have 2 men who would be very influential in the world of Christianity.
Who were these first 2 disciples? John (it doesn’t mention his name, but some commentators believe it was the author of this book) and Andrew.
John’s gospel is arguably the most referenced book in the bible when talking to people about Christ. John 3:16, when people first come to know Jesus, we encourage them to start by reading John’s gospel.
All because John the Baptist brought John the apostle to Jesus.
Then we have Andrew. We don’t hear a lot about Andrew and the only times we hear about him is when he is bringing people to Jesus.
We may never have notoriety or any big ministry or any other claim to fame. But what we do in bringing people to Jesus could have a monumental effect on Christianity.
Who knows the name of the person who led Billy Graham to Jesus? Or DL Moody or Spurgeon?
But the world would be less if not for those men...because somebody brought them to Jesus.
John 1:40-42 NIV
Not only did he bring Peter to Jesus, and we know the impact Peter would later have, he also brought others . . .
John 6:8-9 NIV
Before we get into the miracle part, look at this. Andrew met Jesus first and was the one responsible for bringing Peter to Jesus and yet Peter still gets top billing.
You don’t know Andrew-well he’s Peter’s brother and we all know Peter. If it weren’t for Andrew, Peter wouldn’t even be there, but it never tells us that it bothered him.
Because Andrew wasn’t in it for recognition, he was in it to bring people to Jesus and whatever happened after that, was God’s job.
By Andrew bringing someone else to Jesus, Jesus was able to do a miracle.
Think of it this way, If we have experienced a miracle, we were probably in a service where someone prayed for you, or you had the miracle happen at home or in a hospital, but the point is, the person praying for you or the people praying for you were at one time introduced to Christ.
Someone at some point had to “bring them to Jesus”. If someone, somewhere did NOT bring them to Jesus, they would not be able to be praying for you.
Who else did Andrew bring?
John 12:20-22 NIV
Who is Philip? Philip was another person who we don’t hear about often but he was like Andrew. He was a bringer.
John 1:43-46 NIV
Even though Philip encountered some resistance from someone he was trying to bring, he didn’t give up. People may be hesitant to come with you to church on that day or any day, but our response can be the same as Philip's!
Come and see. He didn’t try to persuade him or argue with him. He simply put the offer in his court. Come and see for yourself if what I am saying is true..
Philip wasn’t about to save anyone and knew that the ultimate change would come from Jesus. His job was simply to bring him.
When we planned this day, the ultimate goal was to help us understand what our mission as believers is. It is to bring people to Jesus.
Our job isn’t to save anyone, or to convince anyone or even argue with anyone. Our job is to bring them to Jesus and let Jesus do what he’s going to do.
Asking someone to come with you is probably the least confrontational way to being people to Jesus.
I understand the nerves and worry that come during those times, but those are things that we need to ask God to help us overcome.
When we allow the worry and nerves to get the better of us I have to ask why. Because I believe we all had points in our lives that those things didn’t get the better of us--Times when you couldn’t shut us up, even to the point of being embarrassing or even foolish.
When John writes to the church in Ephesus in Revelation . . .
Revelation 2:2-4 NIV
I believe our first love was the not the ability to endure and persevere, that comes with time, but the excitement and desire to be back at the point where we can’t shut up about it.
There’s an old Keith Green song-“Create in Me a Clean Heart”.
Look at Psalm 51 David’s repentance psalm after Nathan the prophet busts him.
One line says it all: “Restore unto me the joy of my salvation”
Psalms 51:12 NIV
Where are you at on this Christian road? Do we need to be re-energized? Do we like David, need to have our joy of salvation restored?
Because I believe that is we need to be able to be the ones who bring others to Jesus . . .