Do you remember the first person who told you about Jesus?  Perhaps many of us would say we can’t remember.  We were raised in Christian homes where faith in Christ was something that happened along the way in the natural order of growing up under the influence of Christian parents.  We know for certain we believe in Christ but we can’t remember the first time we believed in Christ any more than we can remember our first birthday party.  We certainly remember being baptized and joining the church.  But, we really can’t remember a time we didn’t believe in Jesus.  Many of us would say that, if we had to name the very first person who told us about Jesus, we would have to point to one of our parents.  Others may have a different story.

Perhaps you became a Christian later in life, in your teens or even in your adult years.  You definitely remember becoming a Christian because it was a radical shift in your life.  It was like a U-turn on a busy four-lane highway at rush hour.  You were going one direction and decided to go the other.  You scared a lot of people to death when you made them put on the brakes and think about where they were headed, too.  You couldn’t forget it any more than you could forget your name.  And, you vividly remember the first time someone, a specific person whose name you’ll never forget, helped you make that U-turn toward Jesus.  Who was that person?

If you asked Peter, he would be able to tell you who first told him about Jesus.  Now, let’s pause here for just a moment and think about this.  We’re talking about Peter, who eventually became one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus.  He was the one whose faith so impressed Jesus that he was moved to say that Peter’s faith modeled the nature of the church he was building (Matthew 16:18).  Many years later, Peter wrote two letters to the churches being formed in the first century.  His letters, known now as 1^st and 2^nd Peter, made such a profound impact on the early church that some two or three hundred years after they were written they were still being copied and circulated and were eventually included in what we know of as the New Testament.  Peter’s faith experience was so radical that he was almost certainly martyred for his faith somewhere around the end of the 1^st Century A.D. 

Though he stumbled now and then, once he was introduced to Jesus, once he made his U-turn, Peter never looked back.  A great deal of what we know about Jesus today we know because of this man Peter.  And, it all started when one person first brought him to Jesus.  If you asked Peter who that person was, he would say, “It was my brother, Andrew.” 

Let’s trace it back even further.  Andrew had been following John the Baptist as one of his disciples.  John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin.  John unashamedly claimed that his whole reason for being born was to point other people to Jesus as the Light of the world, the savior of all humanity (John 1:19-27).  One day, when some of John’s disciples were just hanging out with him, his cousin Jesus happened by.  John turned to his disciples, one of whom was Andrew, and said, “‘Look, here is the Lamb of God.’” 

This “‘Lamb of God’” thing would make a whole lot more sense if we were Jewish.  Lambs played more than just a sheepish role in the Jewish way of worship.  They were used in ritual sacrifice in the Temple.  Lambs, and only the best lambs of the whole flock, were sacrificed on the altar as payment for the sins of the people.  The blood of sacrificed lambs was believed to have a cleansing affect on moral impurity.  Lambs as a symbol of sacred worship were as common to Jewish people in the 1^st century A.D. as organs and pianos, pulpits and steeples are to 21^st century Christians. 

When John said “‘Lamb of God’” while pointing to Jesus, the Jewish people at least knew what he was trying to say.  Even if they didn’t believe Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, they knew what John was claiming about Jesus when he claimed he was the was the “‘Lamb of God.’”  That he was the person John believed would someday be sacrificed to pay the price of their sins.  Many, many years later, Peter even wrote to the early followers of Jesus about his understanding of what John was saying about Jesus.  “You know that you were ransomed . . . with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish” (1 Peter 1:18-19).   But, long before Peter wrote those words, something else happened first. 

First, when John the Baptist said to Andrew, “‘Look, here is the Lamb of God,’” Andrew started following Jesus that very moment and spent the rest of the day with him.  We don’t know what happened during those hours.  What do you think they talked about?  Don’t you wish we knew? 

Actually, I’ve found out it can be a little dangerous to become the fly on the wall you sometimes wish you were so that you could overhear a private conversation.  In high school, I had the biggest crush on this girl but wasn’t sure what she thought about me.  It never occurred to me to just ask her.  Instead, a friend and I came up with a more complicated and dangerous solution.  Ricky had a hot car and was also good friends with this girl.  He offered to pick her up one day and drive around with her and ask her questions about me.  All the while, I’d be stowed away in the trunk where I could hear every word.  We hatched the plot and it worked.  And, let me just say, aside from the normal “don’t ever try this at home” advice, that there are some times that ignorance is truly blissful.  There are some things you don’t want to know.

Whenever scripture doesn’t tell us something, I’m satisfied that it’s something we don’t need to know.  Whatever it was Jesus and Andrew talked about that day, however, it was something so profound that the very first thing Andrew did after leaving this meeting with Jesus was to go and find his brother, Peter.  When he found Peter, Andrew could only say to him, “‘We have found the Messiah.’”  Then, “He brought (Peter) to Jesus.”  John told Andrew about Jesus.  Andrew told Peter.  And, the rest, as we like to say, is history.  Holy history.  Church history.  Personal history.  In one way or another, all of us who follow Christ today can point back to that moment that Andrew brought Peter to Jesus. 

Up until now, the question has been, “who first told you?”  It’s a good question to ask because we need to remember that we are not here by accident.  We didn’t just happen to become Christians.  Someway or another, God put someone in our lives who first said to us, “Look, there is Jesus.”  Someone brought us to Jesus.  Now, the question is, who will we bring?

I’ve been thinking about our 40 Days campaign.  I’ve been thinking about how important it is for us to remember that this is not just about us.  It’s not just a program designed to make those of us who already believe in Jesus feel better about already believing in Jesus.  The true purpose of this campaign is to help us remember that, just as someone once told us about Jesus, we need to tell others about Jesus.  The whole history of the New Testament church is partly related to the fact that John told Andrew and Andrew told Peter.  One person told one who told another.  That’s how the church grows.  One at a time.  What if, during this 40 Days of Purpose, every one of us just told one person about Jesus?  Not thousands, not hundreds, not dozens, just one.  What if hundreds of us just told one?  Just brought one person to meet Jesus. 

If you’re like me, you’re already asking how in the world you bring someone to Jesus, a person we cannot see or touch or visit with like we do our neighbors who can talk back to us.  How do we do that?  It’s a good question.  We need to spend less time asking it and more time answering it but it’s still a good question.  And, if you are like me, you may be so worried about those who won’t listen or who won’t believe or those who might reject us that we often overlook those who might listen.  It’s not as hard to tell someone about Jesus as we tend to make it.

This past Wednesday night and again this coming Wednesday night, PBS is broadcasting a remarkable program that I’d highly recommend.  It’s entitled, The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis with Dr. Armand Nicoli.  It is a program built around the dialogue between the writings of Freud, a rationalist, and Lewis, a believer in Christ.  It’s fascinating to me because I’ve never seen a conflict between science or reason and faith except the ones we artificially create.  All truth is God’s truth, whether we arrive at understanding it through science or reason or faith.  We will never accept any truth by faith that science can disprove.  And, science can be one avenue to understanding God because, eventually, deductive reasoning is going to ask a question that only faith can answer. 

We can’t see God or experience him with any of the five physical human senses.  But, each of those senses eventually leads us to ask what is behind what we can experience with our five human senses.  So, if we’re going to ask people to follow Jesus, it won’t be because we can prove to them he exists.  Asking people to follow Jesus, however, will hopefully lead them to ask a question that only faith can answer.

Did you know that we can’t actually see what causes a hurricane.  We’ve seen what hurricanes can do, even this week.  But, no one has actually ever seen what causes them.  A hurricane is really nothing more or less than a point of extremely low barometric pressure.  Barometric pressure has to do with the weight of the atmosphere at any one point on the planet.  When it gets low enough in one spot, for reasons no scientist fully understands, it becomes like a giant vacuum cleaner, pulling air and moisture into itself at such enormous speeds that violent winds and rains are created that start spinning around the center of the low pressure until they become destructive to everything in their path.  So powerful that, as with Ivan, some of the waves in the open ocean were measured at over 50 feet in height. 

You can’t see extremely low barometric pressure.  But, you can see the affect of extremely low barometric pressure for thousands of miles on the Gulf Coast and up the eastern seaboard of the United States this morning.  We can’t see what causes a hurricane.  Does anyone doubt that what causes them exists? 

All this to say that, we can’t prove the existence of Jesus to people we ask to follow him.  But, if they can see the evidence of Jesus in our lives, they might be led to ask a question that only faith can answer.  Are you living the kind of life that would make people ask questions only faith could answer?  I didn’t ask you if you were perfect and never made mistakes.  I’m asking, what is the evidence of the presence of Christ in your life?  Let people see that, tell them why you believe it happened and let them ask the next question.  You might be surprised where that question leads.

Sometimes, opportunities present themselves in serendipitous ways.  Jody Dean is a newscaster for Channel 11 here in Dallas.  By his own account, until just a couple of years ago when his third wife asked him to leave, he’d been drinking too much, sleeping around with other women and using extreme profanity in all of his conversations.  Two years ago, you may remember, the bus carrying the youth from the Metro Church in Garland to summer camp crashed into a bridge pylon on Interstate 20 near Terrell, killing four of the youth and the bus driver and critically injuring scores of others.  Jody Dean went to cover the story.  A church leader met all the media people when they arrived and asked to lead them in prayer.  This is what he prayed.  “‘Lord, if your grace and power is revealed to even one person here because of what’s happened today, then we give thanks.’”  Dean says that he now knows he was that one person.  One month after he heard that prayer, he was baptized and became a follower of Jesus.  Soon, his life had changed so much because of Christ in his life that people at work began to see a difference.  One viewer even emailed him to say, ‘I see something different in you’” (“Newsman credits prayer for change,” Dallas Morning News, Saturday, September 18, 2004, p. 2G). 

If Jesus has made a difference in our lives and we’re not hiding somewhere, people will eventually ask rational questions that only faith can answer.  If we will pray that God will use us during this 40 Days campaign we will be surprised at what happens next.  That’s a good place to start.  Would you be willing to pray, “Lord, if your grace and power can be revealed through my life to just one person, I’d be grateful”?  If you don’t know how to do anything else, would you be willing to just pray that prayer and trust God for the rest?

It may mean that we have to stop hiding out, like behind the pulpit.  Sometimes this pulpit gets in the way.  It may comfort those of us who can’t remember a time we didn’t believe in Jesus.  But, for many, institutional religion is more of a barrier to faith than a bridge.  If the pulpit gets in the way, step out from behind it (step out from behind pulpit and sit on platform steps).  Maybe you can’t invite someone to come with you to church and look at the pulpit.  But, maybe you could invite them to your home for a Home Team meeting.  Sometimes, even a coat a tie gets in the way.  If they do, take them off (remove coat and tie).  Be open to the fact that God will more likely than not use you, not a preacher behind a pulpit, but you, in the give and take of everyday life, to tell others about Jesus.  He will certainly use you if you will begin with prayer. 

Ask God to give you the name of one person you could bring during this 40 Days.  Just one.  You may be surprised to find that the name he lays on your heart is someone who is already very close to you, someone you just hang out with, someone as close to you as Andrew was to Peter, someone who might ask you if you know of a good restaurant or what movie you’ve seen that you’d recommend.  Someone who already trusts you enough to take your restaurant and movie recommendations might just very well listen if you have prayed for them and then you say, “I’d like you to meet the Jesus who made the difference in my life.”

Someone, someday may ask that person who first told them about Jesus.  Wouldn’t it be something if, when they answered, they gave your name?  Wouldn’t that be something?

It’s something that can be.  If everyone just brings one.