Creating Opportunities to Bring the Kingdom Near

When we talk about prayer and evangelism, fear and guilt can rise up within us. How are we going to let it out of the bag that we are actually followers of Jesus? I’m hoping after you’ve read this article any fear or guilt will be replaced with confidence.

Prayer evangelism is explained clearly in Luke 10:5-9:

   ⁵ “Whenever you enter someone’s home, first say, ‘May God’s peace be on this house.’ ⁶ If those who live there are peaceful, the blessing will stand; if they are not, the blessing will return to you. ⁷ Don’t move around from home to home. Stay in one place, eating and drinking what they provide. Don’t hesitate to accept hospitality, because those who work deserve their pay. 

   ⁸ “If you enter a town and it welcomes you, eat whatever is set before you. ⁹ Heal the sick, and tell them, ‘The Kingdom of God is near you now.’ 

There are 4 principles at work here that show us the power of prayer and the power of evangelism:

1. Speak peace or blessing.

2. Fellowship or be friends with those that are not yet Christians.

3. Serve them or take care of felt needs.

4. Proclaim or share the Good news with them.

It is important for us to understand that these principles are interconnected and, to be effective, must be implemented in the order given. After this strategy was given by Jesus multitudes came to faith, demons were banished and truly the Kingdom of God had arrived. 

But most of us have been taught or done the exact opposite! Let me explain.

Often although well intentioned - in the past many of us have only been involved in the proclamation, telling  people that they need to repent and then somehow hoping that would be enough. But in just giving the repent message, we’ve not understood we are dealing with people that are described as ‘Sheep without a Shepherd’.  They need a Shepherd approach and not a general approach. We do need declaration, but we need context too. We need to show them the goodness of God.

Let me expand on the 4 principles:

1. We can speak blessing and peace upon people.

Jesus' method of evangelism calls for us to first speak peace over the lost. For at least 3 reasons.

1. We need to declare peace because we, as Christians, have been at war with the lost. 

‘Sometimes we have had a tendency to strongly dislike sinners, those that aren’t following Jesus yet, or don’t believe like us.’

We are irritated by their actions. We speak negatively about their lifestyles.

We try to protect our family from their influences, but what about John 3:17?

Ed Silvoso says: ‘Preaching the truth without love is like giving someone a good kiss when you have bad breath.’  No matter how good your kiss is, all the receiver will remember is their bad breath.

The way we think about non-believers means we can have attitudes of war against those who have not yet come to Jesus. We need to change that.

2. If we bless the lost we will stop cursing them.

We do not realise how much we curse lost people. We describe them and pronounce judgments on them because of their actions. Do we recognise this in ourselves? Do we need to change that?

3. We speak peace in order to neutralize the demons that have been assigned to blind our neighbours to the light of  the gospel.

‘The god of this world (the devil) has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel’ (2 Cor.4:4)

The devil is actively blinding people. The devil is not omnipresent so uses demons to do that (Lk 8:5,15)

The task of opening the eyes of the blind is on the believer. 

We see how Paul explains that in Acts 26:17,18

¹⁷ And I will rescue you from both your own people and the Gentiles. Yes, I am sending you to the Gentile ¹⁸ to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in me.’

Paul leaves us in no doubt of the active role Satan and his demons play in blinding the lost to the gospel. We need to factor in how to disable the demonic grip on those we are trying to reach.

Blessings are more powerful than curses because curses can be broken.  An atmosphere of blessing weakens the grip of demons. Allowing people’s minds to be opened to the goodness of God.

When we speak blessings over those in our circle of influence, sooner or later those people who avoided us will begin to seek us out, opening the door to friendship/fellowship (step2) If we curse people and complain about them we close the door to fellowship.

Luke 10:5-6

⁵ “Whenever you enter someone’s home, first say, ‘May God’s peace be on this house.’ ⁶ If those who live there are peaceful, the blessing will stand; if they are not, the blessing will return to you.

Proverbs 18:21

The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.

2. Fellowship or be friends that are not yet Christian.

Friendship not proclamation is the key.

What value is there in fellowship without sharing the gospel with them??

‘Friendship provides an opportunity to show unconditional acceptance by welcoming our new friends just the way they are instead of the way we want them to be.’

Friendship allows us to see into peoples lives and lets them see that our lives are not perfect either. Allowing people to do something for us allows them to have value in our relationship. Looking after our kids, offering to cut the lawn etc.

As we get to know them, understand them we appreciate they like us are broken humanity that needs help in many different ways. The marriage may look great, but is it? They may be the perfect family, are they?  Do they have fears about their jobs etc.

Their felt need is not always the greatest need. We know their greatest need is Jesus, but to get to their greatest need their felt need must be met first.

That was the brilliant move at the start of the Salvation Army; they understood that it was very difficult for people to hear and receive the gospel if they were hungry. Their felt needs distract them, but when their felt needs are met and received and they’ve felt the blessings of that, then there may then be an opportunity to talk to them about their ultimate need.

If we can then pray for people in their felt needs, we connect them with the eternal realm. ‘Prayer is the most tangible trace of eternity in the human heart.’  When you touch people at their known deepest need.  Most people realise there is a solution to their problem and it is outside of their control.

We can bless and pray – believing God will open the hearts of the person.

1. Blessing opens the door to unbiased friendship

2. Friendship establishes a level of trust, allowing our friends to share felt needs

3. Serve them and pray for felt needs

3. Serve them and pray for felt needs

 ‘Heal those that are sick.’  Meet the need. 

Lonely – befriend them

Housebound – shop for them

Need a babysitter - babysit

Budgeting issues, whatever it is, help them in their need.

When we serve people with their felt needs sometimes we get the opportunity to pray into their world. They don't know how to connect with Jesus but we do. 

4. Proclaim the or share the Good news has come

Sometimes we shy back from praying, thinking what if he doesn’t answer -- well then that’s on God, he’s big enough to look after himself.

I think we’re actually more concerned about how we would look in this situation and our own personal reputation. Let’s step out in this area, let's pray into peoples lives.

As we pray for our friends – it brings the Kingdom of God near to them. Sometimes we can be too obsessed with just dragging people over the line. But what we need to do is surround them with the goodness of the Kingdom and his love. This is what opens their eyes to Jesus. 

‘the kingdom of God is near you.’

In Acts we can see what happened in the early church when they did this.

Acts 5:28

²⁸ “Didn’t we tell you never again to teach in this man’s name?” he demanded. “Instead, you have filled all Jerusalem with your teaching about him, and you want to make us responsible for his death!”.

Romans 15:19-23

¹⁹ They were convinced by the power of miraculous signs and wonders and by the power of God’s Spirit.^[a] In this way, I have fully presented the Good News of Christ from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum.^[b] 

We want our communities to be filled with the teachings of Jesus. We want people to say that he's a good God, that those Christians they love to help people. We want the social services to say we care about peoples actual needs. We know that their Ultimate need, which is Jesus, will be met. But what we want to create is a momentum of reputation in our community, not in church on a Sunday morning, but in our workplace on a Monday morning, in our school, in our neighbourhoods, we want the teachings of Jesus spread. God is for people not against them, he loves them, he’s on their case he’s out to do them good.

Acts 19:10

¹⁰ This went on for the next two years, so that people throughout the province of Asia—both Jews and Greeks—heard the word of the Lord.

The whole province heard! This wasn’t just done by the disciples, it was done through unsaved people telling others about the goodness of Jesus and they’d not even experienced him - they were gossiping about the gospel - they made the message viral! So people understand that God is for them not against them, that he has a passion for their lives. 

My friend Brian in Phuket had been teaching these principles, and they began to think about how to put this into practice. So they decided to help the most despised people in society and they decided this was the police. The Phuket police were not paid enough, so many were corrupt, which made them despised.

They decided to bless them, they hired a restaurant and invited 150 of them for a meal and to let them know how much they appreciated all the police did to look after their community. So whilst they were eating people from the church got up and thanked them for the different things the police do, blessing them.

The deputy Police commissioner was crying - when Brian asked him what was wrong, he said it was too much, people saying they appreciate us, it’s too much - what are you up to? Brian told him we’re not up to something, we follow Jesus and he tells us to respect those in leadership so we want to honor you. He said it was too much and wanted to leave, but Brian said you can’t leave before I bless you. Tell me a need that you have and I want to pray and bring that need to Jesus.

The deputy commissioner explained they needed more police officers, but there’s no more money. The population has exploded over the past 15 years but they still have the same amount of police officers. So Brian prayed and they went home.

3 days later the deputy commissioner calls and tells Brian he will never believe it, but his boss received a call from the police commissioner in Bangkok and Phuket will be able to have more police officers!

7,000 more police officers and they could start recruiting in the next month!

Jesus gives us the opportunity to get out of our boat of security to just say a prayer - just a simple prayer - he’s not asking us to levitate!

Let’s put Jesus on the spot and pray into peoples lives and let him show us how interested he is in people’s lives. It’s more than we could ever imagine.