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If you haven't been around over the last couple months, we've been going through a sermon series called Harvest, the Harvest. And so we are going back. We took a two-week break off of that. We had Teen Challenge.

You guys remember Teen Challenge last week? It was awesome having Teen Challenge here. Man, God was doing so much after both of the services last week. It was incredible people that were saying, hey, I want to check in.

I want to go to Teen Challenge from our community. It's just so powerful that they came and that it's actually going to mean freedom for brothers and sisters that are here. And we're so excited about that. So we are continuing the series.

And we have two more weeks of it before Christmas hits. And so this week, we're talking about how can you invite someone into a relationship with Jesus and actually lead them to get born again? We've been taking these baby steps of, OK, evangelism is really scary. And there's fear around it.

And we need to actually say, notify your conspiracy sin and fear is keeping us from actually living into our destiny. And so we say, notify your, and then we start looking up the way that Jesus did. And he saw Zacchaeus in the tree wanting to know him. And there's people all over our city that are curious, longing to know Jesus.

And they're in the trees of our city. And the first baby step is actually to just look up and notice people. Secondly, we step into listening to people. Let's stop as a church, as Christians preaching at people.

And let's start listening to their stories. And then after we've listened to their story and we get to know them, whether they're friends, family, coworkers, a random person that you meet at a store. And you listen to them. And then what you do is you contextualize the good news of Jesus for them.

And remember, we talked about the simple gospel. We did a simple gospel training. How many of you guys were at the simple gospel training? Raise your hand high.

I want to see. OK. Wow. Either some of you are new or you just didn't come to church.

That's OK. That's OK. You're forgiven. Simple gospel training where we talked about, does anybody remember?

So at least there's 40 of you in the room. Does anybody remember the four points of the simple gospel? Why don't you shout them out? What was the first one?

Creation. That's good. We're talking about how God created the world and everything in love. And then what's the next part of the simple gospel?

The fall. Then entered into the picture. And then all of us are born with a broken nature, sin nature. We're all born sinners.

And then what was the next part of the gospel? Redemption. God sends his son Jesus. Jesus dies on the cross.

And then he rises from the dead three days later. He conquers sin and death. That's the good stuff right there. And then what's the fourth part?

Choice. You have a choice. Every single person has a choice of, do I respond with following Jesus? Or do I not?

And that's where we left off. So picture with me. You have a friend. You have a co-worker.

You have a family member. You just share the simple gospel with him. And then it's like crickets, right? Like, OK.

So that was pretty good, right? Like I did it. Like I preached the gospel. Like, what do you think, right?

No, in that moment of you sharing the gospel, let's say you gave the one, two minute breeze through. This is the simple gospel. What do you do next? And that's what we're going to talk about right now.

What you do next is you ask them a question. Because it's not monologue time. It's actually like a conversation. And so you ask them a question like, does that make sense to you?

Have you ever heard that before? What do you think? What do you think about that? And then you, what do you do?

You start talking? No, you listen to them, right? So you listen to them and you continue talking about the gospel. And then at some point, as if they have questions, you answer their questions.

If you don't know the answer to the questions, you are not a bad Christian. We go into conversations like that and we're like, OK, I have to have all the, you're like, right before you hang out with them, you're like trying to cram for the test. Like apologetics. Oh my gosh, I don't even know how these words.

It's like, you don't have to have all the answers. It's OK. You could say something like, yeah, I don't know. That's a really good question.

I don't know. I want to get back to you. That's OK to have that statement in a conversation like that. They go, whoa, OK, so you're a real person in that moment.

It's called humility. That's rare in the earth. Be a humble person because that's who you are and God, right? But let's say they hear the gospel.

And it seems like they're responding to the gospel. In that moment, you say something like this. This is the golden question right here is, do you want to give your life to Jesus? That's the question that you get to ask right in that moment.

Do you want to give your life to Jesus right now? And then what do you do? You zip your lips. And you stop talking.

Because right in that moment, that's when the Holy Spirit is starting to move. If you would just be quiet and let the question hang, God is on the move in their hearts. And they're actually confronted with this question, what do I do with Jesus? Now it's not about somebody else in the world.

It's actually about me. What do I do with him? Now you'll notice that the question wasn't, do you want to go to heaven? Do you want to not go to hell?

That is not the essence and the core of the gospel of Jesus. The core of the gospel of Jesus is I'm crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live. I'm turning my back on my old lifestyle and I'm giving my life fully to Jesus and fully to him.

I'm repenting and I'm turning away from my life of sin, my old life, and I'm going to follow him and I'm going to give him everything. Not, hey, you could go to heaven if you just say yes to him. If you just say the prayer, you'll go to heaven. The gospel of Jesus is not about going to heaven.

The gospel of Jesus is about heaven coming inside of man. The gospel of Jesus is about relationship with God for eternity. It says in John 17, this is eternal life that they would know me and him who sent me. In other words, when you invite someone in a relationship with Jesus, you're not inviting them for a ticket to heaven.

You're inviting them into relationship which is eternal life. Because eternal life, heaven, what is it? Living in a new earth, a new heavens with him, the one who created everything, right? So use it up your lips after you say, hey, do you want to follow Jesus and give your life to Jesus?

And if they say yes, then you don't go, oh my goodness, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, let's pray really quick. I was hoping you'd say that, oh, thank you, thank you, okay, all right, here, grab my hand, okay, let's do it right now. That's not what you do. Don't be such an eager beaver, okay?

You can, I've never said that on the mic before. Listen, when you look at the gospels and you see Jesus, half the time he's making it more difficult for people to follow him. He's like, okay, if you really want to follow me, then leave everything, sell everything, reject your old life, you don't get to sell your father's estate and get the money from it, just follow me right now. That's the type of thing that Jesus is saying, and we're so eager to go like, oh, I want them to just do it right now.

I think it's important that they count the cost. Now, I'm not saying that you put blockades in front of them like, okay, I don't think you're ready though. Like, I don't think you really want him. Like, I love him, but I don't know about you yet, right?

You're not doing that, okay? But it's helpful to actually know, is this do you really want to say goodbye to your old life? Do you really want to say goodbye to what you've been living in and give your life to Jesus? And so, tonight I want to just briefly hit a couple points that I think are really simple that we can lead people through, and I just want to articulate that this is not the way, all right?

There's thousands of ways to invite people into a relationship with Jesus. And I know that there's not like a heavy revelation, okay? I look at me in the eyes, I get it, this is super simple. I understand.

I know that some of you guys are like, oh, I know that, I know Jesus done, I got it. But the question is, do you know how to lead someone into a relationship with Jesus when they want to respond to the gospel or do you not? Or do you, they say yes to Jesus, and you're like, okay, I don't know what to do, but we'll figure this out. Now I will say, they're gonna get born again.

Like you don't have to have all the answers, you don't have to have all the notes, right? The Holy Spirit's gonna help you, but it's gonna help so much more if you actually are equipped. We're trying to demystify the scary things, inspectate your Christianity. If you don't know how to lead somebody in a relationship with Jesus and you're a Christian, that's like one of your main callings in life.

Is to bring other people in the family of God. You don't know how to do this? Why don't you know how to do this? What's your problem?

Well, you've been going to church for a really long time and nobody's ever told you, because they think that's the pastor's job. I blame all the people that have been leading you that would never equip you to do it, because they think it's only their job. Now take responsibility for yourself, okay? Like I'm talking about both sides of my mouth, I know that.

We're my main men now, we're gonna accept responsibility, right? But we have to get in our minds, this is all of our responsibility, and this is the moment of our greatest joy. He's transformed me, now I get to invite him, and that person's life is gonna be forever changed for eternity. That's the best day ever, all right?

So these are a couple of things that I think are valuable that we find in scripture around people giving their lives to Jesus. So we can put it up on the screen, you can take a picture of it, it's not complicated, or you can just write notes in your phone. The first is, I'll have the conversation with them and say something like, okay, so you're ready to die to your old life, like you're ready to turn from how you've been living, and I'll let them talk. And they might have questions about that, and that's really good.

And what this is, the Kingdom of God is at hand, like Mark 115 says, the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe. This is, hey, do you realize that you're a sinner and that you need saving? Every single, this is what we talked about, so you remind them of what you talked about with the gospel, like you were born a sinner, so you need saved, right? And the only way that you get saved is you turn from the way that you've been living.

So that's repent, then believe. So I'll ask them a question, do you believe that Jesus died, that Jesus God, that he died, and that he rose again from the dead? And you can talk about that, there's questions. Then it's received, do you believe that you need forgiveness, that you need saving, and then do you want to be forgiven?

These are all really good things to be asking, these are important, right? Fourth, surrender, are you ready to make him king? Are you ready to dethrone yourself? Are you ready to not live for yourself, but live for him?

And then lastly, are you ready? And this is the point where you get to transition into another question, are you ready to invite him into your life, right? And if they say yes, and you guys have had that conversation, now this is like probably a sit down, it's probably not on a street corner, I don't know, maybe it's like go buy them coffee or something, but it doesn't have to be this way, that's why I'm trying to articulate. You might just go right into, you want to give your life to Jesus, let's do it right now.

But if you want to, if you have the space and the time, you can have a real like in-depth conversation, that's healthy, that's good. Do you want to give your life to Jesus? They say yes, they're like yeah, I want to. And then you can even articulate, I want you to know, I'm not pressuring, I don't want to pressure you.

So if you feel pressured at all, I want you to not feel that way, this is your choice. This is a choice that I can't make for you, right? We want to be winsome, but we're not trying to convert people. We want to be excited about who Jesus is and that he's changed our lives, but we're not trying to pull a quick one on him, right?

If it's done in love, then it doesn't feel that way, right? And if they're ready, then we do the same thing over again, and they do a repeat after me prayer. So it can sound like this. How about you guys, no, I don't want to do the repeat after me with all congregation.

I'll just run through these really quick of how I would maybe communicate it, okay? And you can listen to how I would speak this prayer out, and it's very simple. When you're about ready to invite them into a relationship with Jesus, and they've said yes, right before you pray, this is what you do. You set up the prayer for this is what's gonna happen when you do this.

And you start casting vision of what their new identity is gonna be after they've given their life to Jesus. So you say something like, after you've given your life to Jesus, this is what you're gonna experience. You're gonna experience hope for maybe the very first time. You're gonna be set free from all of the desires that you once had.

You're actually gonna have freedom and power over them. You're gonna actually have a whole community of people that are gonna love you and even in thickenthin, and they're all in process and mess, but that's okay, we love him together. You're not gonna be alone, and Jesus is gonna be real for the very first time, you're gonna have a relationship with him. It's not gonna be like religion stuff, you're gonna have connection with the God that loves you.

And you get to start speaking in, it's gonna have an effect on you right now. You're gonna feel different, and even if you don't feel different, it's actually true. There's gonna be effect right now, but it's gonna for the rest of your life, change who you are. And you're gonna start learning for the very first time who you were always meant to be.

Are you ready? And you make it this like joyful thing. Not a, are you ready? For the vow or to ready for the gospel, right?

No! This is a time where it's actually like, this is gonna be their birthday in the spirit forever. This is like a happy day, this is a good moment. So we don't get all solemn.

Okay, are you ready for this? No, it's like, are you ready? Let's do it, okay? And then you say, okay, repeat after me.

And, but make it, and I love saying this, make it in your own words, if repeat after me doesn't feel like authentic. Just in your own words, it doesn't have to sound religious, okay? And I'll like encourage them, and I'll even tell them about prayer a little bit. Like, praying is just talking to God.

It doesn't have to sound super spiritual, right? And then they'll, we'll do a repeat after me. So I'll say something like, Lord, I've sinned against you, myself, and others. And I turn from my old life.

And I choose to believe that Jesus died, and that he's God, and that he rose again. And Lord, I receive forgiveness for all of my sins. And in that moment, you can, if it's the right moment, if it makes sense, you could even have that person confess sins that they need forgiveness for. So you could say something like, are there any things that are on your mind where you go, I just, I need forgiveness for this.

And you can, you can like list those out, and then receive forgiveness. And you can say, and you can like lead them through that. And that could be a really significant powerful moment for them. And then it's not just receiving forgiveness, right?

So Lord, I receive forgiveness for all my past, present, and future sins. And I love having an inflection too. Remember, it's like, I kind of like laughed at the end of that sentence. Did you hear that?

Like, I receive forgiveness for my past, present, and future sins. It's good news, right? And then I'll say something, you're not just receiving forgiveness, you're receiving identity. So Lord, I receive a new identity that I'm no longer a sinner, but now I'm a son that's been saved by grace.

And then you go into, I surrender the throne of my life, and now I make you the king of my life, right? And then lastly, I invite you, Holy Spirit, to make a home in my heart and my life, and I invite you to transform me, to make me new. And then I love finishing with this last part, this is the best part, because you're training them in that moment, their first experience. You're training them that this is a love relationship.

And you say something like this, God, thank you for loving me. I love you back. Something simple like that, I love you too. That, amen, right?

And then right after that, you get to celebrate with them, and you get to talk through that. And we're gonna talk next week about what do you do with a person that just gave their lives to Jesus, like, okay, now what, I don't know what to do with them, right? And we're gonna talk about that next week. But this week, I wanna just practice, because that's what we do, right?

We're ending the spectator Christianity thing. We're not just gonna sit and spectate and listen, but we're actually gonna be doers of the word, right? And so what I want us to do is practice leading someone in a prayer to get born again. Can we do that?

Now, if you were hearing this message and you don't know Jesus, and you wanna give your life to Jesus, the person next to you can lead you into a relationship with Jesus. And if you wanna give your life to Jesus, you can do that right now. Jesus loves you so much, and this could be your moment tonight, right now, if you wanna give your life to Jesus. Or you can practice giving your life to Jesus by repeating after the person that's next to you, okay?

So what I want each person to do, you just pair off to groups of two, and if there's a person around you that doesn't have a group, you can welcome them in your group. And you're actually going to pray. So I know that it's practice, and you're like, oh, that feels weird, we're practicing, but we're praying. It's where we gonna practice if it's not here, right?

So you're gonna do a repeat after me prayer. Now the person that you're leading in the prayer, don't be the person that's just listening to them and not repeating after them, okay? Because that's gonna feel really weird. So there's a cadence that you need to practice in people repeating prayer after you.

And the reason why they're repeating prayer after you is because they've maybe never done this before, and they don't even have the language. And you're helping them, it's just like, when there's a baby or a toddler, and you're helping, you know they say something, and you're like, okay, let me help you, this is what you mean. You're helping them into a relationship with God, okay? And so that's why we do a repeat after me prayer.

But we can obviously coach after that when they give their life to Jesus about what prayer is. Okay, you ready? This is good. All right, so I'm gonna let you go and do this for about four or five minutes.

Does everybody feel clear? Okay, we know what we're doing. You can use this as a cheat sheet, all right? Be a leader, bring somebody in your group, if there's people that don't have groups, ready, set, go.

How did it go? Was that okay? All right, okay. Psalm 126, if you wanna turn in your bibles, you can turn it to Psalm 126, just wanna share briefly a little bit of a story that I believe is an integral part of our church history and what God has called us to on this topic.

Psalm 126 verse six says this, He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. In 2012 on November 1st, I was taking a retreat with the Lord, and many of you, if you've been around for a while, you've heard this quite a few times. But I know there's a lot of new people in the room. So November 1st, I'm taking a prayer retreat with God in Dinkytown, which is one of the least church zip codes in all of America, and God is doing so much on the campus of the U of M.

But I was there in 2012, I was not a student, so I graduated long before that, okay? But I was there and I was praying and out of nowhere, I felt like the Holy Spirit dropped this phrase in my heart and it was the Lord saying, Joshua, seed America. He said, Joshua, seed America. And then he said, so seed on every path.

And I was a little like, okay, what are you talking about? What are you saying? And I turned to Mark 4 and I was reading all the parables. There's four parables in Mark 4 about seeds.

And so I was reading that and I read, you know, so seed on every path and I was like, looking at the path, I was like, Lord, the path is bad, soil. You want me to sow seed on the path? And he said, I don't care about the soil, you just sow seed. And I believe that the Lord, that day, said something that was so significant to me.

He said, the key to demystifying evangelism for the body of Christ is to make evangelism about sowing seeds. We get all stuck and like, oh, I failed if I didn't say the sinner's prayer. If I didn't do Romans row, then I failed, right? But for the last four years as a community, five years as a community, we've been going after.

You're like Johnny Appleseed. Have you ever heard me say that? I'll say that at the end of service. You're like Johnny Appleseed, even though that wasn't a person, right?

And I'll say that. And it's coming from this encounter that I felt like the Lord put this impression on me. The key to demystifying evangelism is to make it about seeds, not so winning. But I believe there's an invitation for us as a community to believe for more than just seeds.

I think many of us maybe have been around a couple years. And we've gotten comfortable. And I've said this many times. You'll remember I'm going to say this.

You know that you've heard this from Pastor Josh. I'll give a word to somebody in public, right? And I'll declare the heart of God over them. I'll bless them in some way with truth from God's heart.

And then I'll say, OK, have a good day. Have you ever heard me say that before? And I'll tell the story of like, I'm just, it's about sowing seeds. But I want to encourage us to be more urgent for souls, to be a little bit more patient and present, and give a little bit more time in the moment, because I believe that the fields are more ripe than we think.

I believe that we're going to go out sowing seed. And God is wanting us to walk back, having reaped, having people that gave their life to Jesus. And so I want to commission us as a community. Let's press beyond what's comfortable for us.

And let's move into the urgency, like D.L. Moody had in Chicago. He preached the gospel to thousands of people at this event. He preached the gospel.

And at the end of his message, he said, hey, next week, we're going to come back. And I want you to think about what Jesus has done for you. And next week, we're going to make a decision, if you want to follow him or not. And later that night, there's a Chicago fire.

It's in the history books. It's one of the biggest fires in Chicago. Thousands of people die. Many of the people that are at the gathering that he preached at were killed in the fire.

And for the rest of D.L. Moody's day, he said, I'll never share the gospel without giving an invitation to have somebody give their life to Jesus. And it was this hunting thing of, I have urgency. There's people, I might not talk to them again.

Who's going to tell them if it's not me? Who's going to tell my coworker if it's not me? Who's going to tell my neighbor if it's not me? We don't know if it's going to be there last time.

So I want to encourage you, be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. I was talking to Nick Cruz. How many of you love Nick Cruz? What a man, right?

Nick, I was just talking about the talk of evangelism. He said, something that I always carry when I'm talking to people that don't know Jesus, is I carry the urgency of that, but I also carry godly Holy Spirit patients. And it's a conversation with the Holy Spirit in the moment. Are they ready for this right now, Lord?

And we get to be sensitive with that, OK? But I want to encourage you, go out so in seed. Take the baby steps. But I believe that we get to press past your seeds.

There's people. I want to encourage you, have on the tip of your tongue, do you want to give your life to Jesus? That question, they're more ready than you think they are. They're longing for the hope of Jesus more than you know.

I look out at you and I see people that actually walk this out. Soul winners, they've taken that personal and said, no, I'm going to go after my dance team. Come on. Love Jenna.

I'm going to go after my dancing. They don't know Jesus. I want them to meet Jesus. Do you want to give your life to him?

You can say that. And it doesn't have to be weird because you're not weird. Because you're becoming love. Because that's who you are in God.

Let's all stand. I'm going to commission you out. There's people up front after the service that would love to pray with you. And so if you need prayer for anything, there's people that would love to pray with you after the service after I've prayed.

You guys ready to get commissioned? All right. Lord, here we are your Johnny Apple seeds, your Jenny Apple seeds. I declare that we are a people that are going to stomp on fear.

And that the fear of man will not hold us back from sharing the hope of the gospel in our city. Lord, we declare that we are going to stomp on fear that would actually hinder people from entering through the pearly gates of heaven. Lord, we thank you that you're going to help us because you're the helper. And so I commissioned this group of people, this community of people, this family of people that are in the process.

And I declare that they are qualified, even having not gone to Bible school, a class, or seminary. I declare that they are the qualified messengers of the kingdom in every sphere of society. That we don't take status quo and normal as just, this is my life. Lord, we declare that we're the hungry ones.

And we want to see our city transform. We want to see you move in our day the way that you did thousands of years ago. And Lord, we declare that we're the sons and daughters that are revival on feet, that have beautiful feet. It's who we are.

It's our destiny. Young, old, married, single, black, white, whatever. Lord, we just declare that we are the messengers of this day. And this is the third great awakening.

The end of spectator Christianity. Here we go. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. I love you. You are a messenger of the gospel.

You are an evangelist. Just be you. Amen? All right.

Have an awesome night. Go out to eat. If you need prayer for anything, there's people up front that would love to pray with you.