Mark 6:53-56: Bringing People to Jesus

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Over the years, I have found that Christians and non-Christians have at least one thing in common. You mention evangelism, and both of them begin to get uneasy. For some, it comes down to not knowing what the word means. For instance, before I became a Christian, I always associated the word evangelism with the preachers on television who were always begging for money. After I became a Christian, I had a different idea of what evangelism was. When I was a student at UNC-Charlotte, we had this guy who would show up on campus a couple of times every semester, wearing a suit and carrying this HUGE Bible, and he would stand in the center of the main quad there and scream at the top of his lungs that everyone within earshot of him was going to hell unless they repented of their sins and came to Jesus. I was not too sure I wanted to be involved in that sort of thing. I knew that Christ had given His Great Commission to make disciples of all nations to the entire church, and that I had a responsibility to be a witness for him, but I just didn’t know how. I have come to realize that my frustration was not unique.

At the church where Donia and I were members before I entered the ministry, there was this guy in our church who everyone thought was a great soul-winner. He had been asked to go visit someone who needed Christ. He called me up to ask me to go with him, so we met at the church and I got into his car. There I saw this mountain of books, tapes, pamphlets, and all this other paraphernalia about evangelism. I said, “What’s all this?” And this guy who everyone thought was so great at evangelism said to me, “Man, I get so nervous doing this – I don’t know what to say or what to do, so all day long I’ve been reading these books and listening to these tapes to get myself ready for this visit.” I said, “Whoa – stop the car. Maybe all this stuff is what’s making you so nervous. Let’s just put these in the trunk, and pray about this visit we’re about to make. It doesn’t have to be so complicated.” And it wasn’t. We had a great visit with those folks that night, and they came to know the Lord, and became active members of our church.

What is evangelism? We refer to it as “witnessing.” What do we mean by that? Well, let’s suppose you are called into a courtroom as a witness. What is your task? You are to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what you know concerning the issue in question. Where were you? What did you see? Who was there? What happened? What did you do after it happened? That is what it means to witness in a court of law, and that is what it means to witness for Jesus. We simply tell others what we know to be true about Jesus Christ, about how He saved us, and about how our lives are different as a result. And we offer them the opportunity to encounter Him just as we have, and we leave their results of it all up to the Holy Spirit. It isn’t our job to convert people. It is our job to present Christ to people. It is all the work of the Holy Spirit to bring about conversion in their lives. It really isn’t that complicated. Just go and tell, and pray that they will respond in faith.

As I thought about our passage this week, I thought about how it illustrates our responsibility in the Great Commission. So let’s look at the text and draw what I hope will be some helpful insights to assist us as we seek to bring others to Jesus.

I. To Be a Witness for Jesus, We Must Recognize Him (vv53-54)

It may seem like an obvious thing to some, but it must be stated. You cannot get others to come to Jesus if you never have yourself. Do you recognize Him? The people of Genessaret were not expecting Jesus. The disciples had set sail from a place near there to cross over the lake to Bethsaida, but it seems that the late night storm had driven them back to the opposite side of the lake, and they moored to the shore at Genessaret. But even though they weren’t expecting Him, they knew who He was. Immediately (Mark’s favorite word), they recognized Him. How did they know it was Him? Well, it is not unlikely that some of them had been a part of that enormous crowd where Jesus fed the multitudes. Others perhaps had been present when He spoke in a synagogue or in an outdoor gathering. Some of them had maybe encountered Him privately and been healed of their sicknesses or freed from demonic bondage. But the people who saw Him knew who He was because they had a previous experience with Him.

Have you had a previous experience with Jesus? I don’t mean have you ever had the goosebumps in a church service, or have you ever been through some sort of religious ritual. I mean, have you ever met Jesus in a personal way? Has He ever personally done for you what it is that you want Him to do for someone else? Have you recognized Him for who He is – not a performer of wondrous feats or a teacher of profound truths – but as Savior and Lord? Each of us must come to that place in your life where we recognize that we have been separated from God because of our sins, but out of His love for us, God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ to reconcile us to Himself. When Jesus died on the cross, He died for my sins and your sins. He took the punishment that you and I deserve, paid our sin debt in His own blood for our redemption. He became our substitute, receiving in Himself the wrath of God that our sin deserves, so that we could be forgiven and reconciled to the God who made us and who loves us. He conquered death and sin by His resurrection from the dead, thus demonstrating His divine nature, His infinite power, His authority to be Lord of all, and His ability to save us. The Christian faith is based on the historical truths of these events, but becoming a Christian does not mean just giving intellectual assent to a set of historical facts. One might say, “I believe all those things happened, just like I believe that George Washington was the first president of the United States.” No, the appropriate response to Jesus is more than just intellectual agreement with the facts of His life, death, and resurrection. In addition to that, there must be the personal and volitional appropriation of what Jesus has done. It is not enough to intellectually agree that He is the Lord and He is the Savior. There must be the commitment of one’s complete faith and trust in Him. Have you repented of your sins, abandoned all efforts to save yourself and placed your faith in Jesus Christ alone as the only hope you have of being made right with God? Is He Lord and Savior of your life?

Now you will say, “Why does the pastor say these things to us? We are members of the church and faithful in attendance.” Hear my heart here beloved – there is only one thing that saves. There is an infinite number of things that do not save. Church membership does not save. Baptism does not save. Church attendance does not save. Communion does not save. Having Christian parents does not save. Avoiding certain sins does not save. Walking the aisle does not save. Praying a prayer does not save. Being a worker in the church, a teacher, a deacon, even a pastor, does not save. What saves? Jesus Saves. And He saves all those who come to Him with a personal commitment of faith in Him as Lord and Savior. And I say this to you because there is a very strong likelihood that in every church are some who do not believe that. They hear it week after week, and nod their heads in agreement, but go out thinking that they will make it to heaven because they are decent folk, and not because Jesus has saved them. According to Hebrews 13:17, I will answer to God for each and every one of you. When that day comes, I want to know for sure that I did all I could do to make sure each of you are there too.

This week, the news came out that Dr. D. James Kennedy was retiring as pastor after 48 years of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church of Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Some of you know Dr. Kennedy from his television or radio program. But perhaps the greatest impact Dr. Kennedy made for the Kingdom of God was the development of a witness training program called “Evangelism Explosion.” The logo of that program is 2 question marks side by side. Those two question marks represent two questions that the program teaches everyone to ask. First, if you died today do you know for certain that you would go to heaven? Second, if you died today and were to stand before God and He were to ask you, “Why should I let you into heaven?” what would you say? I cannot count the number of times I have asked those questions over the years. And most often, I find that people either have no assurance that they will be in heaven, or else if they say they have assurance, it is a false assurance. Let me ask you – Do you know for certain? And how do you know? What would you say to God if He were to ask you “Why should I let you in?” The only answer to that question is, “I do not deserve heaven because I am a sinner, but I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins, and I have committed myself to Him as my Lord and Savior, and I can only enter heaven because He has saved me.” If your understanding of what it means to be a Christian is somehow different from that, then you have not been born-again. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can be today by turning from your sins (including the sin of false belief) and calling upon Christ to save you. He is your only hope.

Do you recognize Jesus? Have you encountered Him sometime in the past in such a way that you know that what He has done for you He can do for others? When He landed unexpectedly on the shores of Genessaret, the people recognized Him in that way. They knew Him because they had experienced His life-changing power at some point in the past. And if you want to bring others to Jesus, it is imperative that you know that you have come to Him yourself.

II. To Be a Witness for Jesus, We Must Run for Jesus (v55)

When the people of Genessaret recognized Jesus, they began to run about the whole country. But they were not running around in a hysterical frenzy. They were on a mission. They had friends, loved ones, neighbors, who needed to meet Jesus for themselves. And so they were running about to find them and bring them to Jesus. They even picked them up and carried them if they needed to.

If you have rightly recognized Jesus, then you know that He can do for others what He has done for you. Go and find them. Tell them what He has done for you, and offer them the opportunity to meet Him for themselves. How do you do that? You can do it in casual conversation. You can do it over a cup of coffee. You can invite them to join you for church – you might even offer to drive them and offer to buy them lunch afterwards. Thom Rainer, the president of Lifeway, did a study on unchurched people in America that showed some pretty remarkable findings. He found that the unchurched can be grouped into five categories.

U1: Highly Receptive to the gospel (11%)
U2: Receptive to the gospel and the church (27%)
U3: No apparent receptivity; neutral; perhaps open to discussion (36%)
U4: Resistant to the gospel but not antagonistic (21%)
U5: Highly resistant, even antagonistic (5%)

Now we may think that everyone we talk to about Jesus won’t be interested, but Rainer actually talked to the unchurched and this is what he found. Only 1 out of 20 are highly resistant and potentially antagonistic. Only 1 in 5 are even somewhat resistant. That means that almost 75% of unchurched folks are at least willing to have the discussion with you, and nearly 40% are going to be at least somewhat receptive to what you have to say. But perhaps most enlightening about Rainer’s study was the answer to the question, “If someone you knew invited you to church, would you attend with them?” And remarkably, 82% said they would. That is 4 of every 5. Yes, you are going to run into that one every now and then who doesn’t want to have anything to do with Jesus or the church, but more often than not, when you are talking to unchurched people, you will find some measure of receptivity. So why is it that churches across the country are not reaching the unchurched? Even those churches that are growing are growing primarily through transfer of membership. Very few are reaching the unchurched because very few are going out to find them. Go and find them. Be their friends in a sincere and authentic way, and invite them to come to church with you, or tell them about your encounter with Jesus. They are more receptive than you think.

Now, what do you do if they aren’t interested? Well, do we do like those in this passage, and pick them up and carry them against their will? Not exactly. I say not exactly, because of course we don’t want to drag them into the church or into the Kingdom of God kicking and screaming. But we can pick them up and carry them to Jesus in prayer. We must spend time talking to Jesus about that person before we can ever hope to effectively talk to the person about Jesus. Prayer must precede our witness, it must accompany our witness, and it must continue after our witness. And we must not think that just because a person is not interested on one occasion that they won’t be interested later. It may take multiple contacts, multiple conversations, weeks, months, years of prayer and witness, but if we are faithful to our task, God will be faithful to His. So we must run and never give up, seeking to bring that lost friend to Jesus. If they say, “No,” we continue to love them, continue to be their friend, continue to pray for them, and continue to live and speak our testimony for Christ before them.

III. To Be a Witness for Jesus, We Must Desire to See Others Reach Out to Jesus (v56)

When the people of Genessaret found their friends and brought them to Jesus, they had done all they could do. It was then up to each of those individuals to reach out to Jesus. That must be our desire – to see that friend or loved one reach out to Him.

Our text tells us that they were imploring Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak. The Old Testament law commanded that Jewish males adorn their garments with blue tassels on each corner to remind them of God’s commandments. Perhaps these sick had heard about the encounter Jesus had with the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5. Maybe they even heard it directly from her – or from someone who saw it happen. And just as she was healed when she reached out to touch His garments, they hoped perhaps that they would be too. But this was no superstitious belief in the power of magic garments. In that passage in Mark 5, Jesus did not say that power had gone forth from His garment – it went forth from Him! And it was not the touch of her hand upon His garment that made her well – Jesus said it was her faith in Him that healed her. And so here, these are not healed because they touched His garment, but because they had faith in the power of Christ to heal and that faith prompted them to reach out to Him.

But shall we go out and tell others that if they will only come to Jesus, they will be rid of all the problems they face in this life? By no means. We are helped here in understanding that the Greek word translated “cured,” or “healed” in v56 is the word esozonto, from the Greek word sozo, which is a word used of salvation. And while in certain contexts, such as this one, the word means physical healing, and in others it means spiritual salvation, the occurrence of this word here reminds us of an important truth about the miracles of Jesus. The miracles of Jesus have two ends. First, they are demonstrative; by them Jesus demonstrates that He is the anointed Messiah of God who has come to save His people. Second, they are illustrative. When the prophets foretold that the Messiah would make the lame to walk and the mute to sing, they foretold what was literally done through Jesus, but their language was also a figurative description of this Messiah Jesus would do for the souls of mankind. Our souls are crippled by sin. We can do nothing of our own power to bring about healing in our souls. There are no others who can help us remedy this condition – only Jesus. And as each one reaches out by faith in Him, they find a healing of the soul that no other source can provide and the greatest need of their life is met – the need of reconciliation to the God who made them, who loves them, and who has done all that is necessary to redeem them.

At a recent PBA meeting, we heard a presentation – I should probably call it a sales pitch – for a program to teach you how to bring your friends to church. It was $189, and included DVDs and other stuff. And there were six sermons written by really good preachers, and the salesman said if only I would go back and preach these guys sermons instead of my own, then God could really motivate our people to go out and bring their friends in. Is that what you need? Do you need better sermons? Do you need movies? Do you need a program? I just don’t think its that complicated. I think we see in this passage all we need to know. This brief passage shows us a concise picture of what it takes to be a witness for Jesus. Recognize Him – do you personally know Him as Lord and Savior of your life. Run for Him – go to those who don’t know Him and offer them your testimony and give them the opportunity to meet Jesus. Desire to see them reach out to Him. It is really not that complicated. The question is will we do it? Will we go out and spend time with those who don’t know Christ and tell them of our own relationship with Him and bring them to Jesus in hopes that they might reach out to Him as well? Only you can answer that question.