Message from Sunday, October 17, 2021 (Notes provided after the video link for the hearing impaired.)

Acts 10:30-33 NLT

[30] Cornelius replied, “Four days ago I was praying in my house about this same time, three o’clock in the afternoon. Suddenly, a man in dazzling clothes was standing in front of me. [31] He told me, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your gifts to the poor have been noticed by God! [32] Now send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. He is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore.’ [33] So I sent for you at once, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here, waiting before God to hear the message the Lord has given you.”

            Last week our extended story from Acts 10 included Peter asking why Cornelius had sent for him.  Cornelius answered the question by telling about his own vision and thanked Peter for coming.  Then he told Peter everyone gathered at his house was waiting before God to hear his God-given message to them.

            This group of people wanted to hear what God had to say to them.  They had gathered because Cornelius had invited them into his home to come hear the message from God.  They knew Cornelius.  They were his family members, his friends and people with whom he associated on a regular basis.  They had a relationship with Cornelius already.

            That relationship had put them in a position to accept his invitation.  They were already aware he feared God.  They already knew he was a compassionate and generous person.  They trusted Cornelius enough to be willing to listen to someone they had never met because Cornelius had invited them to come listen with him. 

            Now, let’s apply this part of the story to our situation here as we continue to develop the Children’s and Youth Center we have named Youth United at The Landing.  Last week I mentioned that God will use people, places and situations to show us we need to change what we’re doing so we can meet a need that exists in someone’s life.  We ended our time together asking God to help us see what other people in this area need and how we can meet that need through the ministry we are developing here.

            When Jesus sent disciples out to share the good news, He told them to spread the gospel to Jerusalem first.  He then told them to go to Judea, to Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the world.  That meant they would be talking to the people they already knew in Jerusalem first and the ones they would meet through them.  They would be talking to people and developing relationships with them so they could share what they had seen and heard while Jesus was with them.

            We will have to do the same thing they did.  We have to bring new people into our realm of influence.  Allow me to remind us of a concept we looked at a couple of years ago.

            We have an inner circle of close friends.  This might include family members, neighbors, work colleagues or folks we have lived around for a long time.  But this group is a very small group.  Most people only have from one to five people in this group.  You may have already tried to share something about your faith in Jesus with them.  There’s a good chance that, if you’ve been saved for very long, all of these people already are Christians, too.

            After them is a larger group of people you know and feel close to, but you wouldn’t necessarily share special secrets with them like you would that inner circle.  This group consists of family and other friends with whom you can relate, and a few of them are probably not committed followers of Jesus.  These are around you often, if not daily.  You go to school with them, work with them, attend ballgames with them, or you might even go fishing or shopping with them.  You wouldn’t object to having them over for a cookout to just hang out together.  You know them, and get along with them, but they aren’t your “best buds.”

            Then there are the people you seldom, if ever cross.  You might know their names or what grade they’re in or where they work, but that’s about all.  This is a much larger group.  You don’t know their families or hobbies, or even if they have any.  This group may recognize you, but they don’t know you well enough to take what you say at face value.  They may even not completely trust you simply because they don’t know you well.

            The largest group of people around us is made up of those we do not know and have never met.  This group wouldn’t know us from Adam’s house cat.  This group is probably leery of strangers and might just slam a door in our faces if we knocked on their door to invite them to an event Youth United is hosting at The Landing.  These are the people who might not accept a gospel tract from us because they believe what some ungodly person has said and think all Christians are bigots.  They could also be open-minded enough to take a tract or listen to an invitation to an event, but, since they don’t know us, they won’t think much about what we offer, unless they think it might be to their benefit.

            Here’s a reality that I’ve shared before and we need to remember—82% of people surveyed will consider going to an event at a place of worship if someone they already know invites them to come with them to the event.  We already know our inner circle, and, in all likelihood, those people already attend worship services on a regular basis.  The next circle includes people we know, but some of them probably do not have a church they attend regularly.

            If we are going to meet the needs of people in that circle, we are going to have to find out what their needs are.  And, to be honest with you, we should concentrate on our relationships with those people who do not follow Jesus.  Those are the people who can benefit from our ministry the most in that circle.  This circle is where we need to focus to find our 82%.  These are the people we should be inviting to join us here if they aren’t already attending worship services elsewhere.

            The next circle consists of people we really don’t know very well.  And they know us, but not well, either.  This circle is where we should concentrate our efforts for evangelism.  This circle will produce the greatest number of opportunities for getting people involved in what we’re doing here after they get to know us.       

            In order to get this circle of people to seriously consider what we want to share with them, we need to work on getting these people into this closer circle.  That means we will need to work on developing our relationships with them.  It means we must intentionally get to know them better and become more involved in their lives and allow them to be more involved in ours.

            How do we do that?  We ask the Holy Spirit to help us create opportunities to get to know them better.  We ask the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts and their hearts to help us to be willing to share the love of God with them and for them to be receptive to that love.  We ask Him to reveal to us their needs.  Then we seek wisdom on how to meet those needs.  We simply must bring more people into our closer circles if we are going to make an impact on this community.

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