Eternal CPR - part 1

Matthew 11:19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."

To help other people become followers of Jesus is one of the most important priorities for any believer. It is a priority that can get swept aside. Sometimes it is because I am afraid that I don’t know what to do or say. Sometimes it’s because I don’t know who to look for. Sometimes it is because Jesus isn’t enough of a reality in my life to be able to share him with anyone else. I was reminded recently of a way of thinking about this mission as a process called CPR—Cultivating, Planting, and Reaping.

Cultivating is very simple but often underestimated. Cultivating is pursuing Christ-like relationships with unbelievers. Jesus was a friend of sinners. The religious people of his day thought it was important that they not be friends with irreligious people. Was it because they wanted to express disapproval for an ungodly lifestyle? Was it so they didn’t want to be tempted to engage in immorality themselves? Maybe they were so busy with people like themselves they didn’t have any time to build genuine friendships with outsiders. Jesus wasn’t that way. He regularly spent time with ungodly people. He wasn’t like them but he loved them. He loved to be with them. He jumped in the middle of their lives and invited them into his circle of friendships. Many of them (not all!) became followers.

Several years ago, Rick and Cindy Bartholomee’s LifeGroup led a whole family to Jesus. Rick and Cindy are great about looking for someone who needs God. It’s not a church thing for them, it’s an everyday, everywhere thing. They met and befriended their realtor, Lesa Henson, and invited her into their life and their LifeGroup. She wasn’t an “evangelism target” she was a friend. As she got to know the group she fell in love with them and with the Jesus they loved. One recent study says that the average person has to know 5.3 Christians before they are willing to commit to Jesus. But they didn’t stop there. They started making friends with her husband Jeff. He wasn’t religious and didn’t participate in their prayer or bible study. But he did like to hang out with them when they did (in his words) “Barbeques and stuff”. Sometimes they would have LifeGroup at his house and he would sit in another room and just listen to what was going on.

Eventually Jeff gave his life to follow Jesus. It was a deep and radical change that lasted the rest of his life. A couple of years later Jeff died from cancer. Before he did, he and Lesa wanted to thank their LifeGroup. Because of their willingness to cultivate Jeff lived a rich Christ-following life and died with peace and the hope of seeing Jesus face to face.

Would you be willing to wrestle with this question in your LifeGroup: Are you a friend of sinners?