Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

This month we wind up the spring series of messages on the theme of bringing Jesus’ love to the world. We are exploring what we mean when we recite the new church slogan: “Jesus transforms us so that we can help change the world.”

It is too bad Dick Johnson did not live to hear this new church slogan. His life was clearly an example of this truth. Before Dick died, he used to lead one of our church groups downtown to feed the homeless. Before serving the food and handing out blankets, Dick would always gather the group for a prayer. Dick reminded the serving team that not only were we going to feed these neighbors in need, but as we serve our neighbors, we can also pray for them. How do we pray for our neighbors while we serve them? He invited the group to open their eyes and see people as Jesus saw them.

How does Jesus see our world? Over one hundred years ago, Dwight L. Moody was the Billy Graham of his day. This uneducated nineteenth century preacher amazed clergy with his success in evangelism. One time a group of ministers came to Moody's hotel room in London to ask him a question. They greeted him by saying, "Mr. Moody, we would like to have a word with you. You come here to London, with your sixth grade education, speaking horrible English, preaching simplistic sermons, and yet thousands of people are converted. We want to know how you do it!"

Moody walked over to a window. "Tell me," he said, "what do you see?"

One pastor looked out the window and said, "I see a park and some children playing."

"Anything else?" Moody asked.

"No, that is basically it."

Another pastor stepped to the window and responded, "I see about the same thing except there is an older couple walking hand in hand, enjoying the evening."

A third clergyman saw the same thing. Then he asked, "Mr. Moody, what do you see?"

As Moody stood there staring out the window, tears began to roll down his cheeks onto his gray beard. "Mr. Moody, what are you looking at?" another pastor asked. "What do you see?"

"When I look out the window, I see countless thousands of souls that will one day spend eternity in hell if they do not find the Savior," Moody said.

While Moody’s zeal and passion for the lost helped motivate that generation of Christians to share their faith, let’s admit that fear of hell and damnation are no longer the main reason most of us share God’s love with others. I have just as much enthusiasm as Moody to share Jesus with others, but it is because I believe Jesus’ promise to bring us an abundant life here and now. Jesus taught his disciples to focus on experiencing God in this life here and now.

Matthew records that Jesus felt compassion for the crowds because he saw them as "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36). Jesus then encouraged the disciples to pray that God would send laborers to help with the harvest.

What does this look like? How do we pray for the Lord to send laborers to help with the harvest? Let’s explore how we pray for our neighbors to experience God’s love.

A missionary in Romania tells about his cat that was caught up in a tree. The tree was too small for him to climb, but the cat was stuck near the top. He came up with an idea. He would tie a piece of rope to some of the branches and then attach them to his car bumper. By driving a short ways he could bend the tree far enough to grab his terrified cat off the top branches. The idea worked well. The tree bent low enough for him to reach the cat, but just as he reached for the cat, the rope snapped and the wide-eyed kitty was catapulted into space. The missionary took the next few hours searching for the cat and finally had to give him over to God's care.

A few days later this same missionary ran into a woman from his church in the grocery store. He noticed she had cat food in her basket. Knowing she did not like cats, he asked her about it.

"You'll never believe what happened!" replied the woman. "My little girl has been begging me for a kitten. I kept telling her that we did not need a cat. Finally, I told her that there was no way I was getting a cat for her, but if God gave her one she could keep it."

"She went straight into the backyard, knelt down and prayed for God to give her a cat that she could love. As she opened her eyes a kitten with outstretched claws came flying through the air and landed in front of her. The cat has been part of our family ever since!"

Is this what we expect to happen when we pray for our neighbors? Do we believe that all we have to do is pray and ask God to love our neighbors and miracles will happen? Before we laugh this idea away, let me tell you about something that happened to me some years ago.

More than twenty years ago I did my first experiments with evangelistic prayer. I served on the Executive Committee for a Billy Graham Crusade. Our small town in Alaska invited the Billy Graham Association to send an Associate Evangelist for a week of crusade meetings. The goal was to get all the Christians working together to share Christ's love with our community. Months before the scheduled crusade, Christians from various churches were encouraged to begin praying for those who didn't yet know Jesus. I began praying every day for the young family who lived across the driveway from us. I knew they were not a church family. I asked God to prepare their hearts so that they would come to the evangelistic meetings and meet Jesus in a personal way. I told God I would invite them if the Lord would simply prepare the way.

A couple of months into the prayers I saw what I took to be confirmation that God was beginning to work. I was asked to guest preach at the local Lutheran church while the pastor was away. That Sunday morning I looked out at the congregation and discovered that this young family was visiting that church. Knowing that they were not a church family, I rejoiced. I doubled up on my prayers that they would meet Jesus Christ through our crusade meetings.

The week before the crusade meetings, I walked over to their house to invite them. Before I could say anything, they gushed with enthusiasm. "Remember you saw us at the Lutheran church when you preached?" I nodded. "Well we joined that church and were baptized today."

They had become Christians! I remember smiling on the outside. "That's wonderful." But, if the truth were known, I was a little upset with God. They were supposed to become Christians at the crusade meetings. When I prayed for them to meet Jesus, I meant they should come to the crusade meetings with me and encounter Jesus as a result of my friendship.

What do we expect to happen when we pray for God to love our neighbors? Do we expect them to discover God's love without our telling them about Jesus?

The Apostle Paul agonized as he prayed for his friends who did not know Jesus. He appreciated that they were good people. He also knew they did not really understand what Jesus had done for them. What should he pray?

He prayed that they might be saved (Romans 10:1). Then he got more specific. Paul realized that God seldom works apart from human involvement. He reasoned that his friends could not meet Jesus unless someone introduced them to Jesus. Should he simply pray that God send someone to evangelize his neighbors? Jesus said to ask God to send laborers into the fields to help with the harvest. Is that all? Should we simply pray for God to send somebody else to love our neighbors and tell them about Jesus?

Romans 10 and 11 are two chapters of Paul reasoning about how best to reach his people with the love of Jesus. He finally drew his conclusion in Romans 12:1, 2. Paul gets to the point in Romans 12:1 where he uses the word, "therefore." "I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters." What did he conclude about praying for neighbors? He realized that when we ask God to transform our neighbors, God usually transforms us first. No wonder he says in Romans 12:2, "Let God transform you into a new person."

What happens when we pray for neighbors who do not know God loves them? The answer is surprising. While once in a while they may find Christ without our getting directly involved, most of the time God gives us eyes to see people as Jesus saw them. We become genuinely compassionate, wanting others to experience God's incredible love.

Over the years I’ve appreciated the writings of Norm Geisler, an amazing Bible teacher, and theologian. While teaching at a Bible college years ago, Dr. Geisler was reflecting on the words of a hymn, "Lead me to some soul today; O teach me, Lord, just what to say." He realized that he was in such a cocoon of Christianity on the campus that he never saw or talked to non-Christians. The next morning, he decided to pray that God would open an opportunity for him to evangelize.

That afternoon a student at the college came up to Norm Geisler and said, "I am really embarrassed to bring up this question. But my pastor thinks I am, this school thinks I am, I've told everybody I am, and here I am studying for the Lord's service and I don't think I'm a Christian. What should I do?" He had the joy of introducing that young lady to Jesus Christ.

As a result of that experience, God gave Norm Geisler a new desire to tell of Jesus' love to those who have no idea that God loves us all. Geisler writes, "The most rewarding experiences I've had in my Christian life have not come from teaching, pastoring, or ministering around the world. They have come from meeting with non-Christians and seeing one after another come to Christ." He recognizes the transformation that has happened to him since that prayer experiment. "When I started sharing my faith with others I discovered that people were not embarrassed to talk about Jesus—I was the embarrassed one." His hang up was embarrassment. I wonder what our hesitancy is in sharing Christ with our neighbors?