Meet the Lost Where They Are
Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.” -- John 4:10
Have you ever wanted to share your faith with someone but really didn’t know what to say? Have you ever tried to tell someone about Jesus and what He means to you, but found yourself stumbling over your own words? Have you ever felt the Holy Spirit’s conviction as you watched a hopeless soul struggle but did nothing about it?
Well, join the crowd. All of us, if we’re completely honest, have faced that loss of words, that lack of action, that knowledge that we should do something or say something but we don’t know what or how. If we could stop holding ourselves back and meet people where they are, we’d understand better what God’s calling really means.
We’re so busy “knowing” stuff that we can’t be bothered with listening. Sharing your faith, your Jesus, your hope and salvation, starts with listening to the lost. Seriously. It means hearing what they say, not using their words as a moment when you can gather your own thoughts and launch more words at them.
Our Sunday school class has been studying how to share our faith with others. Last Sunday we discussed people and the needs we all have. Some folks thought it was boring and didn’t want to listen. They couldn’t understand why we needed to know that lack of food, shelter and sleep will keep anyone from hearing the message of Jesus.
Yet, it’s pretty basic stuff. In order for people to listen to us, we’ve got to listen to them. We’ve got to hear their desperation, their loneliness, their need to belong. Each and every one of us have a hole somewhere deep inside that only God can fill. Everyone has a button, if you will, that sparks an interest and the knowledge of needing more than they have.
And that’s the place where you share Jesus. That place of need, of desire, where questions and opportunity come together. It is meeting the lost where they are, rather than trying to drag them to the place where we sit on our lofty stages looking down on those not living to our standards.
We need only look to Jesus to see what we should do. Thing of Zacchaeus, who was an outcast because of his business activity. Jesus saw him in the tree and invited himself to stay at Zacchaeus’ house. Some thought Jesus was crazy to stay with a sinner. Others no doubt wondered what Jesus saw in the little man who had to climb a tree in order to see Jesus. But what happened? Zacchaeus repented and changed his ways, vowing to give half his wealth to the poor and, if he’d ever overcharged someone on their taxes, to refund them four times as much.
Or think about Peter. He was a fisherman and not looking for anything beyond a life with his boat and his family. Jesus offered to make him a fisherman of people and he left what he knew to follow a Savior to his death.
And, of course, there was the woman at the well. Jesus didn’t condemn her for having five husbands and living with a man she wasn’t married to. Instead, he offered her living water. Jesus changed her life and, no doubt, the lives of many others as she spread the news about this man she’d met at the well.
It’s just so easy -- and so hard -- to know what to say and do when we see ourselves as being better than the lost. We’re all God’s children and He loves each one of us just the same. So the next time you want to share Jesus with someone, get down from your perch. Meet them where they are, and the Holy Spirit will tell you exactly what to say.
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