Five Steps for Leading People to Jesus

Transcript:

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
Many great evangelists have lived and ministered on this earth. But the best model that we have for evangelism is of course, Jesus himself. In this episode, we’ll talk about the five steps for leading people to Jesus that are shown in how Jesus shared his message with the woman at the well.

Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:28):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now, here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:52):
Do you wanna be a master soul winner? You know, the greatest soul winner who ever lived is Jesus Christ. And so I think we should can learn some important lessons from his life that will help us to become effective at sharing the gospel with others. So if you have your Bible, go ahead and open it up to John chapter four. And let’s look at Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman. And by looking at her story, I think we can pull some principles out of this story that will help us to be better at sharing our faith with others. And so John chapter four, verse four, it says, now Jesus had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar. Near the plot of ground, Jacob had given to his son Joseph Jacob’s well was there and Jesus tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the, well, it was about the sixth hour.

(01:54):
And so in, uh, Bible times they started at sunrise and counted the first hour from sunrise, like 6:00 AM to 7:00 AM That’d be the first hour, 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM that’d be the second hour. So the sixth hour means that it was noontime. The sun was high in the sky. Jesus was tired from the journey. He sat down by the, well, he sends his disciples into the town to buy some food. And then this woman comes, verse seven, it says, when a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. All right. So this is the first step to leading someone to God is to start a conversation. Jesus started a conversation with this woman. He was a man, she was a woman. Back in those days, men did not speak to strange women.

(02:57):
He was a teacher, he was somebody important. Uh, this woman was a, a sinner woman, but yet Jesus was willing to start a conversation with her. And I think that we need to be willing to start conversations with the people around us. Now, I, I find it difficult sometimes to start conversations. I I’m introverted, uh, in my personality, uh, but my wife, Jessica, she can start conversations very easily. We’ll go to the store and there’ll be a, a woman there who’s a, a clerk at the store, and she’ll just strike up a conversation and say, does this dress look good on me? And, and after five minutes, they’re talking like they have known each other for 20 years. But I find it difficult. So I find that I have to step outside my circle of comfort and step into the lives of people around me who, who need Jesus.

(03:55):
All right? So the first thing you need to do is to start a conversation. And then verse uh, nine, the Samaritan woman said to Jesus, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink for Jews? Do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would’ve asked him and he would’ve given you living water. So now Jesus turns the conversation towards spiritual things. And this is the second step to leading someone to Jesus, is to turn the conversation towards God. And so you start the conversation by talking about the weather, talking about sports, talking about something that you have going on, but then in every conversation, you look for a way to turn the conversation towards God. One time I was, uh, out on the street and someone says, Hey man, can you gimme a light?

(04:53):
I said, no, I can’t give you a light, but I’ll tell you about Jesus. He’s the light of the world. What, what did I do? I turned the conversation towards God. Or one time I was on an airplane and a guy came down the aisle and he said, excuse me, sir, is this seat next to you saved? I said, no, that seat’s not saved, but I can tell you how you can be saved. And so what was I doing? I was turning the conversation towards God. So in every conversation you have an opportunity to talk about Jesus. You know, one time I sat down next to a, a grandma and she pulled out her wallet and started showing me the pictures of her 14 grandkids. And she had stories talking about her grandkids. Why was grandma talking about her grandkids? Because her grandkids were important to her.

(05:36):
Another time I was talking to a guy who was he, he was into cars, and he had some old cars that he was restoring and, and he was telling me all about his cars. Why was that guy talking about the cars? It’s because cars are what was important to you. And so if Jesus is important to you, then you’re going to talk about Jesus. If you can imagine a water balloon filled with water and you prick the water balloon, what’s gonna come out of the water balloon? Well, water’s gonna come pouring out. And so if you’re full of Jesus and you start talking to someone, Jesus should come out of you. And so first you start a conversation, then you look for a way to turn the conversation towards God. Then the woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.

(06:26):
Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come back. And she says, I have no husband. Then Jesus said to her, you’re right when you said that you have no husband. The fact is you had five husbands, and the man you are with now is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true, sir. The woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. So Jesus had never met this woman before. He didn’t know anything about her, but he used a gift of the Holy Spirit in order to minister to her. And he received the, the word of knowledge for this woman. He had never met her, but suddenly the Holy Spirit told him this, this woman has had five husbands. The man she’s living with is not her husband. And so this is the third step to leading someone to Jesus, is to listen to the Holy Spirit.

(07:20):
You may not know what to say to the person you’re witnessing to, but if you’ll listen to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will put words in your mouth and he will help you to minister to the person that you are talking to. And so I always try to take a step back from the horizontal conversation, and I I go vertical and I start listening to the Holy Spirit and say, holy Spirit, what do you want me to say to this person? Because every person is different. Now look what happens next. The woman says, our father’s worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. She tries to start a spiritual argument with Jesus. Has that ever happened to you? Has anyone ever tried to start a spiritual argument with you? You start witnessing to them and, and they want to start talking a a and and arguing about something.

(08:20):
One time I was in California and we are going door to door talking to people about Jesus, and we knocked on on one door, and this woman came to the door and she says, she immediately started cussing at us when she heard that we were from a church. She says, I’m, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in any of that God stuff. And so we started talking and I asked the Holy Spirit, I said, holy Spirit, you’re gonna have to help me in ministering to this woman. She has these barriers and walls that have been built up against the things of God. And, uh, I, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to ask her about her children. And she had a picture on the wall there of a son and daughter. And, and I just a asked her a question about her, her kids, and she started telling me about them.

(09:06):
And it turned out that her son was in major trouble at school. He was being rebellious, and her daughter was a little bit younger and, and she was starting to have problems. And, and she says, man, my kids, they need prayer. And so right there, I said, well, let’s pray right now. And so this atheist woman, she asked me to pray for her kids. And it was because I listened to the Holy Spirit and asked her a question about her kids. And so we prayed together. And while I had her by the hand, I said, Hey, could we pray to ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life? And so I was able to minister to that woman. Well, when people try to start a spiritual argument, notice that Jesus doesn’t really start a spiritual argument with his lady. He doesn’t tell her she’s wrong.

(09:51):
He just says that God is spirit in his worshipers, must worship in spirit and in truth. And so he doesn’t condemn the lady. He doesn’t say that she’s wrong. He just loves her. And so this is the fourth step to leading people to Jesus is to love people. Someone said that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And now when it comes to spiritual arguments, I’m the type of guy I like to argue. I’m intellectual. I’ve studied a lot of apologetics books and, and, and so sometimes I, I like to start throwing out facts and get into an argument. But I’ve discovered that you can win an argument and lose a soul. And so our goal is not to win arguments. Our goal is to win souls. And I discovered this when I got married to my wife, Jessica.

(10:44):
We’ve been married 16 years now in, in the early years of our marriage, we would have a discussion and she would say something that I thought was wrong, and I’d immediately start pointing out where she was wrong in the discussion. And, and I found that I could win the argument and prove to her that I was right, but it would end up hurting our marriage. And so my goal in the marriage is not to win arguments. My goal is to show love to my wife. And the same is true when we’re ministering to people. We’re not trying to win an argument. We’re trying to show them the love of Jesus. And so even when they cuss you out, even when they say something that, that you can’t stand, you don’t need to argue with them. You just keep being kind to them, being loving to them and keep pointing them back to the truth of God’s word.

(11:35):
All right? The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you am He. Jesus revealed himself to this woman. And this is the last step to leading people to God, is to reveal Jesus. Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men onto me. And so when I go and preach in other nations, I don’t say anything negative about their local religion or their local prophet or holy man. I just point people to Jesus. I tell people, this is what Jesus did in Bible times. Then I’ll share some stories of what Jesus has done in the lives of other people. I’ll share some stories of what Jesus has done in my life, and then I’ll say, and this is what Jesus can do for you.

(12:24):
And my goal is to make Jesus look irresistible. When we lift up Jesus, it draws people to God. As Christians, you might not be perfect, but you serve a perfect savior. And so sometimes people get in a fight trying to defend Christianity. Well, Christians have made lots of mistakes, but Jesus never made a mistake. And so then the disciples of Jesus, they came back and they were surprised to find that he was talking to this woman. And what’s sad is that these 12 disciples had met this woman on the way into this city. None of them brought the woman back to Jesus. But here she is, she’s talking to Jesus, and her life is changed. Look what happens. It says, then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I ever did.

(13:23):
Could this be the Christ? And they came out of the town and made their way towards him. And it says, many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with him. And he stayed two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. And so these 12 disciples, these 12 professional preachers, they had gone into the city, they’d passed the woman on the way when they were in this city, they saw a blind man. They knew that Jesus healed the blind, but they didn’t bring the blind man back to Jesus. They saw a crippled guy over sitting against the wall. They knew Jesus healed the cripples, but they didn’t bring the crippled man back to Jesus. And so Jesus gets a little bit upset at them and says, guys, don’t you say four more months.

(14:11):
And then the harvest, I tell you, open your eyes and look at the harvest field. This woman, she was a sinner woman. She’d had five husbands. The man she was living with was not her husband. She was in the at the well in the middle of the day all by herself. And back then, all the women would go to the well early in the morning when it was cool, and they would all go to the well together. Just like today, all the women go to the bathroom together. Back then, they’d all go to the well together. Well, here, this woman, she’s been rejected by so many people. She’s stolen half the husband’s in the village, and she’s at the well all by herself. But Jesus changes her life and she goes, and she’s able to lead the entire village back to Jesus. And so this tells me that if we can reach just one person for Jesus, potentially we could reach their entire group of friends, their whole family, maybe even their entire city for Jesus. And so if you’ll follow these five steps, you will be better at sharing your faith with others. Number one,

(15:13):
Start a conversation. Number two, turn the conversation towards God. Number three, listen to the Holy Spirit. Number four, love people. And number five, reveal Jesus. If you’ll follow those five steps, then God will use you to reach many people for his glory.

Evangelism Podcast Host (15:34):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.

Evangelist Daniel King (16:35):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries. Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much, and God bless you.

Evangelism Podcast Announcer (17:56):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.