Come and See

Matthew Kilpatrick

January 21, 2024

In Ephesians 4, verse 11, Paul wrote, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

 This is first-century church consulting at its best. As Paul is closing his letter to the Ephesians, he lays out an infrastructure for the church that is still relevant today. One of apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors, and evangelists who are meant to equip the saints for ministry. Apostles are those who have been called or sent by God. Prophets interpret God's will. Teachers inform us about God, His son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Pastors or shepherds feed, protect, and lead. And evangelists connect the apostles, prophets, teachers, and pastors with the community around the church.

 Although each is equally important within the church, one is like no other. It is the “go tell it on the mountain” action called evangelism. Because without it, there can be lots of good churches out there, filled with good pastors, prophets, teachers, and apostles all living in and experiencing Christ, but nobody will ever know about them if the evangelist arm of the church is missing.

 In a recent article, the Evangelical Free Church of America said this about our current state of evangelism: “Sadly, evangelism has fallen on hard times, especially within the local church. Ed Stetzer, a leading evangelical missiologist, asserted that many do not share their faith because it is simply not their gift. Others have bought into the notion of lifestyle evangelism which advocates merely living out one's faith to the exclusion of the proclamation of it.”

Later, the article states, “Perhaps the more honest reason we don't do evangelism is fear; fear of what others might think, fear of rejection, fear of what it will cost, or fear of the damage it may cause. One thing seems certain, Satan has successfully shut the mouths of many of God's people and the lack of emphasis on evangelism is crippling the church big time.”

This puts the church, as a whole, in a tough spot. If we lose our communications arm, the best we can do is lead well those who are already in the church. Preaching to the choir, if you will. And regardless of how hot that fire is burning now, if we don't find more logs to put on it, it will eventually go out.

One of the fun parts about the industry I used to be in was getting to sit at the table with global marketing giants. The funny thing is that I would sit at the exact same table with local startup companies and they each wanted what the other had.

I can't tell you how many times I would sit down with a new entrepreneur who thought they needed a marketing strategy like Coke or Red Bull to be successful. Then later, at the same table, the big guys would come in and commit to hundreds of thousands of dollars in local marketing to attempt to capture what the smaller guys had by default - the personal touch, relationship, and word-of-mouth recommendation that came from grassroots marketing.

I remember trying to convince one of our local startup companies that they had a position in the market that the big guys were drooling over and that we didn't need to spend an extra $100,000 to capitalize on it. What we did need to do was to hit the streets, tell the story, and introduce people to the owners of the company as we hand-sold the product. The company was Blue Spring Living Water out of Blount County, Alabama.

The first time we met, they came into our office with samples and one heck of a story. It's hard to be wowed by water, but it can happen. I sold Fiji water for years and could actually do a taste test between tap, other bottled water, and Fiji in accounts. Fiji would win every time. And that same wow factor was in the bottle of living water from the storied Blue Spring in Blount County.

Usually what happened next in these introductory meetings was the supplier asking for our investment plan to ensure sales for the market. They wanted to know how much attention we would put into the brand and how much money we were willing to spend to push it. It was a hard sell for me to try to convince Blue Spring that the winning formula was not to try to out-Dasani, Dasani.

We had something the big guys would pay millions of dollars to have - a story that connected to the consumer, a local presence, and a superior product. Our energy, at least in the beginning, needed to be focused on building relationships, getting people to try it, and telling them the story.

There would be a time for mass marketing with billboards and radio, but because the value of the product was so high, all we needed to do initially was to get people to try it. This meant going where the people were and getting them to experience for themselves this living water from Blount County, Alabama. To come and see.

How much more effective do you think this strategy would be with the living water found in Christ? Because the living water that we are peddling as Christians is of higher value than anything of the earth that has ever been bottled.

This word-of-mouth strategy is exactly what we see in our passage today. Not only do we see the power of evangelism as carried out through grassroots marketing, but as a bonus, we are given a playbook of what to expect when we hit the streets. We need to pay attention to that strategy and playbook because, even though only some of us are gifted as evangelists, all of us are called to proclaim the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Jesus didn’t leave us with a ton of commands, but he did leave a few - to follow him, to love others as he has loved us, and to go and make disciples of all nations. This means that each of us has an invitation in our hands and a call to offer it that is activated the moment we receive it for ourselves.

Too often, Christians are like my small suppliers. They are sitting and waiting for someone else to tell a message from a bigger microphone, just so they don’t have to. And even though that would be easier, there is just one problem. It will never be as effective as when the good news of Jesus Christ and the invitation to come and see is shared from person to person.

There will never be a growth strategy of Christianity that is more powerful than one person sharing their testimony of Christ with another person. There is no sermon, no ministry, no Facebook message, Instagram post, e-mail, phone call, meme, or billboard that will ever be able to do what you can do just by sharing your faith with a friend.

Besides, if God’s mass communication announcement brought only a few wise men from the East, why would we think ours would fare any better? Person-to-person, flame-to-flame, is the best method to grow the Kingdom. Others are easier but none is more effective. In the Gospel of John, we see how well it worked with Jesus and Andrew, then with Andrew and Peter, then with Jesus and Philip, and finally with Philip and Nathanael. Each one took the bait to “come and see,” as it was offered by another.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus is the first to use the expression “come and see.” He extended the invitation right before our passage from today with two disciples of John the Baptist. When they saw Jesus the day after they met him, they tried to find a way to hang out with him more. So, they asked him where he was staying. Jesus answered, “Come and you will see.”

What happens next is that we are given a playbook for evangelism when Philip goes to his friend Nathaneal to tell him about Jesus. But Nathaneal’s skeptical response is less than ideal. Thankfully, Philip knew where to go from “No” and simply responded, “Come and see.” That’s when we see Jesus move this soon-to-be disciple from skeptical to speechless.

So, step one is to find someone who doesn’t yet have a relationship with Christ. Step 2 is to not tell them about your church, your denomination, nor your pastor, but about Jesus and what is available to them because of him. Then if or when they are skeptical, your play is to invite them to come and see for themselves. To come and experience something more. To experience moments in Christ that are beyond words. That’s what we invite people to - not to experience church, but to experience Christ.

What's the most impressive thing you have ever experienced? Something that required you to be there in person to grasp the experience in its entirety because words weren’t enough. Like a flyover at a big football game, or hearing your favorite song live and in person. I remember the first time I looked up and saw the night sky with no light pollution. I don't have the words to describe what happened in my mind as I tried to take it all in. The only way I could convey the majesty of it was to invite people to see it for themselves.

I’ve had a few more of these moments outside the church, but I’ve had a ton of them that have happened inside the church. Those moments when God moved through a situation and left everyone with their mouths and eyes wide open, as if they’d just stuck their finger in a light socket.

There's only one thing I love more than experiencing these God moments for myself, and that is watching others experience them for themselves. Like the Wise Men and the Epiphany story from last week. People always depart differently from moments when they experience Christ than when they come to them. And we must work with God to invite people to this experience.

It's in those come-and-see moments that faith grows and transforms. Like the marketing plan for my friends at Blue Spring, all we need to do is to get people to give living water a try. Because when they draw near to Jesus, he draws near to them, and in that justifying moment, more change happens on the inside of that person than we could ever facilitate on our own. That’s the power of the invitation that we hold in our hands. Because that’s the power of experiencing Christ.

But we must keep the message about what fills the vessel rather than the vessel itself. Because it won’t work if we substitute the good news of Christ with news about our church. When that happens, we end up inviting them to participate in our church. And as good as our church may be, it is not Christ. Jesus must be the focus of the invitation because Jesus is the one who makes the experience worthwhile and worth talking about. He is the value, and he is the offering.

In the next part of our passage from today, we are reminded of something about Jesus that we often forget, but is certainly part of the evangelism equation - the fact that he sees and knows people long before they see or know him. And because he knows more about people than we can understand, when they finally do seek and find him, they are blown away by how it feels to be fully known by God himself.

Jesus knew more about Nathaneal than was possible based on their exchange. Can you imagine how it felt to have someone you just met know everything about you? To know you in a way that made you feel vulnerable, exposed, cherished, and loved, all in the same encounter? To meet a person who knew all you have done, all you are doing, and all that you someday will do, and still loved you more than life itself? Then even with all that knowledge, you realize that they have been pursuing you, simply, because they want you to know them, too.

I think this point is best exemplified in Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well. A woman who, for whatever reason, felt like she had to come draw water during the middle of the day, not at daybreak or dawn when it was cool. Because of her past, she was more comfortable in the heat by herself than in the cool with the crowd.

When she met Jesus, he “told her everything she had ever done.” She was so moved by the experience that she went and told her entire village to come and see. Not to go to church, not to bring their offering, not to get their affairs in order, not to go touch the water, but to come and see Christ. And they did. And like Nathaneal, they moved from being skeptics, to being seen, to being saved. In their own words from John 4, “It is no longer because of the woman’s testimony that we believe, for we have experienced him for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.” No sermon, no song, just Jesus.

But that’s not all. Jesus took it a step further in our passage. He said if you think that it's cool to meet the maker, and for him to know all you are, have been, and will be, and love you still, then just wait until you see what happens on the road of discipleship, where you will experience even more.

Jesus used the example from Genesis, when Jacob dreamed he saw a ladder, with angels descending to earth and ascending to heaven. Jesus told Nathaneal he would experience that same connection between heaven and earth when Nathaneal followed him. It is incredible, but it’s true for us too.

Unfortunately, people will never reach those a-ha moments of discipleship if we who have experienced it don’t first overcome our fear of evangelism. We must be willing to go to the skeptics with an invitation to come and see, maintaining the faith that not only has God been before us, but when they seek Christ, they will find him. And in that introduction, they will experience a moment of justifying grace that will not only change their lives, but how they experience life altogether.

In the church, we all know well about this life experience. But so many who are outside of the church don't even know it exists. And they never will if we never move beyond the church walls to share it with them, or if we point them only to the church.

In so many ways, evangelism is the teeth of the gears of the body of Christ. Without it, even the best churches are just silos that spin with little to no impact on their surroundings. But when the prophets, teachers, apostles, preachers, and evangelists are active in the church, it can impact the local government, the local schools, the local businesses, the local community, and all those who live in it in a powerful and profound way. We don’t point at ourselves when God moves, but to Christ. As Christians, are the gatekeepers of the most valuable thing in the world and we can no longer afford to keep it a secret from those who desperately need it.

Christianity’s mass marketing may be a little broken right now for the church as a whole, but the strategy of Christ, the most valuable and most powerful marketing strategy in the entire world, is still available to us. Because grassroots, word-of-mouth communication about a product that has tremendous value is still one of the most effective marketing strategies of all time. We call it evangelism and the world desperately needs it.

There is no product ever made by the world that has the value that is offered by Jesus Christ. Some of us are gifted to share that message all the time. Some of us are anointed to share it in special times. But all of us are called to share the Good News. Not by our ministry, not by our media, but by our mouths.

That’s how we share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We respond to every skeptic with an invitation to come and see. It works because all it takes is a little bit of seeking for people to move from being skeptics to seen and finally being saved by Christ. This allows even the biggest skeptics to follow Christ into Jacob’s ladder moments that will leave them speechless. Let’s go and invite people to that.

Let us pray,

Dear heavenly Father,

 Give us the confidence in you to grow your Kingdom. Enable us, empower us, and lead us beyond the church to share the good news of your Son Jesus Christ. Give us the opportunity and words to be like Peter, a fisher of men. Remind us often that it is your power, your grace, and your Kingdom that we are working with and inviting people to, and not our own. Thank you for pursuing us. Thank you for the individuals who have been before us and introduced us to you. Those who first invited us to come and see you for ourselves. Help us to be that person for someone else. May those with eyes to see, see. And with ears to hear, hear. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.