The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!" When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" "Come," he replied, "and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter). (John 1:35-42)
Let’s face it. When it comes to witnessing, two things are true about us. The first is that we all desire to see our friends, relatives, and acquaintances come to know Jesus. The second is that we feel somewhat at a loss about doing anything in order to see that happen.
Without a doubt all of us have some difficulty in sharing our faith. We are somewhat uncomfortable in sharing our faith, even embarrassed at times. It’s not that we don’t want to share our faith. It’s not that we do not have concern over lost relatives and friends. In fact, we do care. Because we care, we feel a sense of guilt over not doing much to reach them. But the task at times seems to be too much for us. After all, don’t you have to be quite a Bible scholar in order to lead people to Jesus?
Be careful not to make sharing Jesus more complicated than necessary. In the Bible, we see many people sharing Jesus who were without formal theological training. In fact, the most effective witnesses were just barely saved themselves. In the passage before us today, we see Andrew reaching his brother Peter for Jesus. But Andrew was just introduced to Jesus himself. By following his example, we find a practical method which shows us how to share our faith. It is a simple method, yet effective. As a matter of fact, most often the simplest methods are the most effective. It is the KISS method — keep it simple saint. The simpler, the better.
We see in Andrew a young Christian who cared about his brother. That describes many of us as well. We care. We want to see others come to know Jesus. What we need is a simple method of sharing Christ which works. What worked for Andrew can work for you.
Let’s notice two simple steps which Andrew took to lead his brother to Jesus.
In verse 41 we read, The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon. The first step Andrew took to lead his brother to Jesus was that he sought him out. We must take the same first step. If we are going to be effective in leading people to Jesus, we must first seek out unsaved people. There is simply no other alternative.
In order to do this there are four important things we need. The first thing we need is to know where they are. That seems simple enough. But you would be surprised at how many Christians do not take the time to think this through. You may say, "How silly! Lost people are everywhere." And certainly that is true. Lost people are everywhere. But the very fact that they are everywhere sometimes serves as an obstacle to reaching them. We can be overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of lost people in this world. There are so many of them. Where do we start? How can we reach the world for Jesus? It seems like an insurmountable task! Sometimes you can be so overwhelmed by the vastness of the task that you give up before you begin. You can be so overwhelmed by the everybody that you fail to reach anybody.
The question is not where are all the lost people, but where are the lost people you can reach? You must know where your mission field is. If you’re going to fish, you must fish where the fish are. After all, Jesus has called us to be fishers of men.
What would you say to a man if you discovered him decked out in fishing garb, pole in hand, with the line and bait immersed in the water of his swimming pool? You might ask, "What are you doing?" He would reply, "Fishing!" You would probably say, "Fishing!?! Why, you can’t catch any fish in the pool. If you want to catch fish, you have to go where the fish are!" And if we are going to become fishers of men, we must learn to fish were the fish are as well.
The second thing we must have is the information about those we must seek out. We must know them by name. Who are those people that comprise your personal mission field? Do you know them by name? Yes, most certainly! God has given each one of us a mission field. We are all missionaries. God has called us, the church, to reach the world for Jesus. But God has called us, as individuals, to reach the circle of our influence for Jesus. It has been said that each of us has a circle of friends, relatives, and acquaintances which number about forty people with whom we have a certain rapport. That number may be slightly more or slightly less in your particular situation. But these are the people who comprise your mission field. These are people you know by name. These are not strangers. These are people we must seek out for Jesus.
The third thing we need in order to reach these people for Jesus is to care enough about them to go after them. We must understand the gravity of their situation. We must understand that without Christ they are truly lost and under the condemnation of sin. They are condemned people. Without Christ there is no hope for them. That is why God commands us to go into all the world. That is why Jesus came. The Bible says, "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son." God loves, and so must we. We must care enough to seek them out, and to use whatever influence we have to lead them to Jesus.
The fourth thing we must have is something to share. Andrew not only sought his brother, he shared what he had found with him. We read in verse 41, The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). Andrew shared his own experience of discovering the Messiah. So must we share our own experience of Christ with people.
We are not talking about deep, complex, theological knowledge here. What we are talking about is sharing simply our own personal experience of how Christ has met our needs. Most people are not interested in arguing about deep theological truths. Most people only think they know the Bible anyway.
You can hear some amazing things at times. I heard of an old back woods preacher who was being ordained. The interrogator asked him, "Do you know the Bible?" "Yes sir," he replied. "What part of the Bible do you know the best?" "I know the story of the Good Samaritan the best," he responded. "Then tell it to us." So the back woods preacher began, "There was a Good Samaritan going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thorns and they sprang up and choked him and left him half dead. And he said – ‘I will arise.’ And he arose and came to a tree and got hung in the limb of the tree and he hung there forty days and forty nights and the ravens fed him. Delilah, she came along with a pair of shears and cut off his hair, and he fell on stony ground. He said, ‘I will arise,’ and he arose and came to a wall and Jezebel was sitting on the wall and she mocked him — and he said – ‘Throw her down again.’ And they threw her down again seventy times seven and great was the fall thereof and of the fragments that remained they picked up twelve baskets full and whose wife will she be in the resurrection?" Thus endeth the story of the Good Samaritan.
When visiting a prison once, I had a very interesting conversation with an inmate about the Bible. He was convinced that the Bible contained certain statements which it did not. One was the statement that "God helps those who help themselves." I shared with him that the statement was not in the Bible, but he contended that he clearly remembered his mother reading it to him from the Bible. I didn’t want to comment on his mother, so I said, "Show me where it is." He could not read, and he replied, "you show me where it isn’t." You see, you can find people who have a rather unique understanding of the Bible.
Some people believe that the epistles were the wives of the apostles. People hear and believe what the want to hear and believe. One excited young child left church singing a new gospel song he had heard… "Soon and very soon, we are going to Burger King."
It’s best not to argue the Bible with unsaved people. Rather, what you need to share is your own personal experience of Christ. It’s hard to argue with a personal experience. Personal experiences are almost unarguable. When Jesus healed a certain blind man, the blind man was questioned by the religious leaders about who Jesus was. The blind man essentially said, "I don’t know about all of these theological arguments, all I know is once I was blind and now I see." We do not have to argue about theological questions. What we need to do is share simply our own experience.
We read in verse 42, he brought him to Jesus. Andrew not only sought his brother, he also brought his brother to Jesus. So we must not only seek out our unsaved friends and share with them our own experience, we must also bring them to a place where they can make a decision for Jesus. In Andrew’s case he literally brought his brother to Jesus. In our case we can at least bring them to a place where they have an opportunity to hear the Gospel and be touched by the power of God. We can bring them to church.
For all we do we must not stop short of this. This the key. You see, the object of evangelism is to evangelize. The object of fishing is to catch fish. The object of fishing is not to bait the hook well. It is not to see the fish take the bait. It is not to get the fish on the line, but to get the fish in the boat.
We have too many today who simply want start a fishing society. They want to have meetings, keep an accurate membership roll, and make sure the members pay their dues. They want to have scheduled meetings in which they talk about catching fish. There they can plan out strategies for catching fish, rules to follow when catching fish, regulations concerning the proper attire for fishing, and so on. Are fishermen those who join fishing societies? No, fishermen are people who catch fish.
I heard of this Game Warden who had a friend who would come back from fishing with hundreds of fish on ice. He was bewildered at how this man could catch so many fish every time he went out. One day when he was talking with his friend, he asked him, "How do you catch so many fish?" His friend said that he should accompany him the next time he went fishing and he would show him how. They set a date, and early one morning they made their way to the lake. The Game Warden noticed that his friend only had a small bag with him. He had no rod and reel, no tackle box. He wondered what he had in the bag. As they arrived in their boat at the right location on the lake, his friend reached into his bag and pulled out a stick of dynamite. He lit the dynamite and threw it into the water. The dynamite detonated in the water and to the surface floated scores of stunned fish. The man scooped the fish into the boat. His Game Warden friend exclaimed, "You can’t do that! I’m a Game Warden. It’s illegal to use dynamite to catch fish." The Game Warden was beside himself, and went on and on and on about how the man was breaking the law. The man calmly reached back into his sack, pulled out another stick of dynamite, lit the fuse, and handed it to the Game Warden, and said to him, "Are you going to sit there and talk, or are you going to fish?"
The real issue a simple one. We Christians do a lot of talking about fishing, but what we really need to do is fish. If we’re going to bring our friends to Jesus, we must do something about bringing them. We must take the time to seek them out, to share with them our own experience of Christ, and to bring them to church. That is the least we can do.
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