Reaching the Marketplace for Jesus

Sample Presentation 

Just some random notes: 

This is the long version.  Usually it’s shorter than this but I wanted to put down everything for you. 

I don’t usually give the Scripture references. I’ve included them so you can look them up to see if you are comfortable with how I used them. 

Words in bold are headers for your benefit – not to be spoken. 

Words in italics are also some guidelines – not to be spoken. 

What I usually say: 

How you start the conversation usually depends on the situation. Below I’ll just assume that we are at the county fair and the adult or child I am talking to has been asked to sit down to speak to me. With Agora Evangelism Ministries, the booth is set up so that, as people walk by, they are asked if they would like to get a free walking stick (usually a wooden yard stick with the beads attached by a leather cord on one end) with a message. If they say “Yes” then they are invited to sit down (in groups of one to five) to hear the message. 

 If you are talking to children then you just have to simplify the illustrations a bit and make it a little shorter. 

Hi, my name is Bob. How are you enjoying the fair? We’re with a Christian Outreach Ministry and we are telling people the message of the beads.  Do you have a church that you attend? 

 As I show them the gold bead, I say something like… 

The gold represents heaven. God tells us that the city in heaven is pure gold (Rev 21:18).  Gold represents perfection. In heaven there is no death, no sickness, there is no disease and no sorrow. There is also no sin in heaven. Heaven is perfect. That’s the way God wants it, that’s the way He demands it.  That is also the way we would want it.  We want the place we go for eternity, the place of rest and peace, to be perfect.  Anything less would be unacceptable. 

And any imperfections would make heaven less than heaven. Think about baking the perfect cake.  If someone came along when you weren’t looking and put some chili powder in the mix, the cake wouldn’t be perfect any more.  Just a little imperfection and the whole thing is ruined.  Heaven is like that. God can’t let anything in that is less than perfect. And that’s where our problem comes in.

Before I go on, I ask them… 

If someone was to ask you, “Are you 100% sure, if you were to die today, that you would go to heaven?” – what would you tell them? 

If they say, “Yes” without explaining why, then I ask them: 

If you were standing at the gates of heaven and God asked you why He should let you into His heaven, what would you say? 

If they answered “no” to the first question or if they answer anything but that they are trusting in the blood of Jesus alone (or something similar) to the second question then I ask them… 

Let me use the rest of the beads to show you what the Bible says so you CAN know that you will go to heaven when you die. 

  I’ll show them the dark bead now. 

God tells us that “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) Sin is when we do something that God doesn’t like. We all have sinned.  And that is why we have this dark bead. It represents us and our sin. 

I heard a story the other day about a grandmother that took her two grandchildren to the store.  The girl behaved exceptionally well but the boy was really bad.  On the way home he asked his grandmother, “Can you tell mom and dad that I behaved at the store?” Grandmother said, “I can’t lie.” He said, “Why not, grandma? I’m only 5 years old and I already lie pretty good.” 

We can all relate to that story because we know it could be true.  Sin in our life is like garbage in a garbage can.  If you have an egg shell in the can or a gallon milk jug its all still trash. It doesn’t matter if it’s small or large.  Our sin is the same way – small or big, its still sin and God can’t let it into heaven. 

As a matter of fact, the Bible says that “The wages of sin is death…” (Rom 6:23a).  I have a job that I go to every day.  I expect to get paid for the work I do – that is my wages and that is what I earned for the work I did. God says that the wages we deserve for our sin is death.  And the Bible says that it’s not just physical death but its also spiritual death. (Rev 20:14) This means that, if I were to get what I deserve for my sins, I’d have to go to hell and stay there forever and ever and ever and never get out.  But God doesn’t want that.  He wants me to spend eternity with Him but I can’t. 

God wants us to be in heaven with Him. So He had to figure out a way to get us there – to a place we can’t get to on our own. 

 Now I hold the red bead in front of them. 

And this brings us to the red bead.  Two thousand years ago God the Son came down to take our place – to take the punishment for our sins. The Bible says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) God wants us to be in heaven for all eternity.  Our sin is keeping us out.  The only way that God could get us there was if He could find someone perfect to take our place - His Son would take our punishment for us. 

A movie just came out recently that showed all the physical suffering that Jesus went through on His way to the cross and on the cross.  But this movie, as gruesome as it was, didn’t come close to showing the real misery that Jesus went through.  When He hung on the cross, God the Father took all the sins of the world – He took Hitler’s sins, He took the terrorist’s sins, He took my sins, He took your sins – He took the sins of the whole world and laid them on the shoulders of God the Son, Jesus Christ. The Bible says “God proved His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8) Then, on the third day He rose from the dead. 

 Now I hold the white bead. 

If we are sinners and Christ died for our sins, how do we take advantage of what God has already done for us? God says in the Bible that “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.” (Rom 6:23b)  The Bible says this is a gift.  These beads I have in my hand are mine.  The leather strap and the beads have already been paid for and I can give them to whomever I choose. Even the stick they are tied to belong to me. Now, if I want to give these beads to you, what do you have to do to get them? 

Here I get them to say that all they have to do is reach out and take them. 

Now that you have the beads, if I tell you that you have to clean them every week or I’ll take them back, is it still a gift? 

They’ll say no. 

If I tell you that you have to pay me a nickel every month or I’ll take back the beads, then is it still a gift?  Of course not.  A gift is free and there is nothing you can do to pay for it or it’s no longer a gift. 

So, if we can’t work for this gift and we can’t earn this gift, how do we get it? 

God says, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” (John 3:36a) What does it mean to believe? Believing means to totally trust.  It’s like getting on an airplane.   When you want to go somewhere (say, Orlando, FL) you get on an airplane flown by a pilot that you’ve never met, whose credentials you’ve never examined, to get you someplace that you want to be. You are putting your life in that pilot’s hands and trusting him to get you someplace you want to be. Trusting in Jesus is similar. God is asking you to put your life in the hands of a man (Jesus) that you’ve never met and trusting Him with your life to get you to somewhere you want to be (heaven).  

After I’ve shown them the first four beads, then I do a quick review… 

Let me ask you,

Do you believe in a place called heaven? (I hold up the gold bead.)

Do you believe that we are all sinners? (I hold up the dark bead.)

Do you believe that, like the Bible says, we owe a penalty for those sins? (I still hold up the dark bead.)

Do you believe that Jesus, God the Son, died on the cross for our sins, was buried and three days later rose from the dead? (I hold up the red bead.) 

Now I ask them if I can pray for them.  I typically pray something along the lines of… 

Before I ask you my last question, may I say a little prayer for us? 

Dear God, thank you for bringing us together and thank you for Mr. Jones’ willingness to listen to Your word and for his honesty in telling me that he is not sure he is on his way to heaven. I pray now that You will speak to his heart about his need for a Jesus as his Savior. 

I don’t say an Amen after this prayer, I go right into the next question – this maintains an attitude of prayer. 

Then I ask them… 

If Jesus is willing to accept you just the way you are, and He is, would you be willing to trust in Him as your only way to heaven? 

If they say no (and they usually say yes) I try to find out why and give them a tract to take with them to read and pray about. But, if they follow the Holy Spirit this far they will usually pray to accept Christ as their Savior. Anyway, after they say yes then I say: 

Okay, I’m going to lead you in a little prayer to tell God that you want to trust in Christ to get you to heaven.  Just keep in mind that it’s not the prayer that gets you to heaven – it’s believing in your heart that Jesus died for your sins, rose from the dead and you are trusting in Him alone to get you to heaven.  The prayer is just how we tell God what we believe in our hearts. 

Okay, let’s bow our heads.  I’m going to help you pray. I’ll say a few words and I want you to repeat them. 

I’ll say a line at a time and wait for them to repeat it. 

God, I know that I am a sinner.

I know that Jesus died on the cross for my sins.

Please forgive me of my sins.

Come into my life and my heart to save me.

I ask the best I know how.

In Jesus name, Amen. 

If you meant that with all your heart, shake my hand. 

Now it is very important that you give them some assurance of their salvation. 

There were a lot of important decisions made today – business, political, billion dollar deals could have been decided. But nothing in the whole world is more important than the decision you made just now. God says “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” (Mark 8:36) 

For this next part I try to open the tract to the white bead section or have my Bible or New Testament open for him to actually read. 

Now, I want to share with you one more thing then I’ll tell you about the green bead.  The Bible says “That whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Rom 10:13) Who do you think “whosoever” is?  That’s anybody in the world, that’s me, that’s you.  Did you just call on the name of the Lord?  This passage says that whosoever (that’s you) shall call on the name of the Lord (that’s what you just did) shall be saved.  Where do you think saved people go? (They usually say heaven.) So, if you were to die tonight, where do you think you would spend eternity? (Sometimes you can even see the light turn on as they realize they are one of God’s own now.) 

Now notice, once you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior you are a child of God forever. So tomorrow, or later today, if you sin, it doesn’t mean that you have to get saved all over again.  If one of my daughters does something wrong she’s still my daughter.  If she breaks a window, she’s still my daughter. If she grows up to become an international jewel thief, changes her name and moves to Africa she’s still my daughter. I may get upset with her, but she’ll always be my daughter.  It’s the same way with our new relationship to God.  By sinning, now that we are saved, we grieve the Lord and hurt our personal fellowship with Him. But, keep in mind, we may break fellowship by sinning but we can never break son-ship.  And if we do break that fellowship, all we have to do is pray and ask God to forgive us and our fellowship is restored. 

I’ll open the tract to the Birth certificate to have them sign and date it. 

As a matter of fact, I want you to sign this spiritual Birth Certificate. 

 Finally… 

The best way to help us keep that fellowship strong is to remember the green bead.  This bead stands for GROW. ON the back of this tract are some ways you can grow closer to God. A good way to remember what to do, though, is remember to GROW: 

G is for “Go to church”. We should find a church where Bible-believing Christians gather to worship and praise God. 

R stands for “Read your Bible”.  The only way we can know what God has for us and wants us to do is to read our Bibles.  If you’ve never read the Bible before, I’d suggest you start with the Gospel of John.  It’s pretty easy reading and it will tell you the story of Jesus and His life here on earth. 

O stands for “Obey God”.  God tells us that when we accept what Christ did on the cross for us, the Holy Spirit comes to live in our hearts and God writes His laws on our hearts.  A real miracle happened here just now and your life will be different. Things you used to do and not think twice about will start to feel different.  God is trying to mold you to be the child He wants you to be.  You need to listen to that voice. You also need to talk to God. You should pray every day and tell your heavenly Father what is on your mind and seek His guidance. 

W stands for “Witness”. That’s what I’ve been doing with you these past few minutes. God wants us to tell others about Him and the love He has for us. 

In the Great Commission God not only tells us to win the lost, He also tells us to make disciples.  We need to encourage the people we win to Christ to either join our church or (if they are too far away) to join a good Bible-believing church in their local area. 

As I hand them a follow-up book, I ask them… 

I’m going to give you this book to read. It will tell you about the decision you made today and what it means to be a child of God. AS I said earlier, this is the most important decision you will ever make. I would love to help you celebrate by sending you a letter of encouragement or have someone from our church visit you. Would that be OK? 

If they say, “Yes,” then I will hand them a follow-up card and ask them to fill it out. Then I will shake their hand and welcome them to the family of God. 

Congratulations and welcome to God’s family. I hope we get to meet again on this side of heaven