Personal Evangelism with Jay Jones

### Episode Summary: Personal Evangelism with Jay Jones

In this insightful episode, Pastor Jay Jones, a seasoned minister from Kentwood, Michigan, joins the discussion on personal evangelism. With over 30 years of ministry experience, including roles as a youth leader and district secretary, Pastor Jones shares his deep passion for reaching the lost. The conversation delves into the heart of personal evangelism, emphasizing the Great Commission and the importance of making disciples rather than just converts.

### Key Insights:
1. **The Essence of Personal Evangelism**:
   - Pastor Jones describes personal evangelism as more than just leading someone to conversion. It's about following the example of Jesus in making disciples, teaching, and guiding them towards a transformed life led by the Holy Spirit.

2. **Transformation Over Transaction**:
   - The discussion highlights the difference between making converts and making disciples. Pastor Jones stresses the importance of moving beyond behavior modification to life transformation, ensuring that new believers experience genuine change rather than just adopting outward Christian behaviors.

3. **The Great Commission’s Full Scope**:
   - Emphasizing the full breadth of the Great Commission, Pastor Jones points out that evangelism includes both the initial conversion and the ongoing process of teaching and discipling. Without both elements, the Great Commission is incomplete.

4. **Balancing Tradition and Innovation**:
   - While tradition can provide a solid foundation, it can also stifle growth if it conflicts with the core mission of the church. Pastor Jones encourages examining traditions critically to ensure they align with the principles of the Great Commission.

5. **Personal Transformation as the Foundation**:
   - The episode underlines the necessity of personal transformation for effective evangelism. Being a disciple of Christ and reflecting His light in our lives is crucial before we can effectively reach out to others.

6. **Practical Evangelism**:
   - Pastor Jones shares practical approaches to evangelism, emphasizing relational and lifestyle evangelism over structured, programmatic outreach. This personal approach resonates more deeply and leads to lasting spiritual growth.

### SEO-Optimized Keywords:
- Personal Evangelism
- Pastor Jay Jones
- Great Commission
- Making Disciples
- Life Transformation
- Christian Discipleship
- Church Growth
- Apostolic Ministry
- Evangelism Strategies
- Relational Evangelism

### Call to Action:
Check out Pastor Jay Jones' resources and writings on his [website](https://jjones.faith) for more insights into personal evangelism, ministry tools, and discipleship strategies. Stay tuned for part two of this conversation, where Pastor Jones will dive deeper into the practical aspects of personal evangelism and discuss his Oikos approach.

Transcript

 Today's episode is titled Personal Evangelism. I have the great, the renowned, world famous Jay Jones.

That is not an initial, that is a name, J J A Y. He pastors in Kentwood, Michigan. He's been there 22 years, combined 30 years ministry. He even double pastored there. He pastored in Big Rapids for a year, handled two churches. He's been a sectional youth leader, a district youth secretary. Then he Graduated to NAM secretary.

They liked was so much. They made them the NAM coordinator, however, whatever that title was there. Then he was president.  And now he has been serving for the last four years as district secretary of Michigan. What a resume, Jay, thank you for coming on the podcast. I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you too.

And it's truly an honor to be here with you, brother Mike.  Well we're going to talk about personal evangelism. I know that's a big burden of yours and a passion of yours. Start us off.  All right. Yeah, it is. This is, this is my heartbeat. You know, that was I was talking with a friend recently who had to have a blood transfusion and there was something, just something about the condition of his blood that his body wasn't getting the health that it needed.

And so when the blood transfusion came in, he said he felt like a new man. And, That's kind of what I've felt like when the Lord really shifted my focus to personal evangelism. It's, it's in my blood and what I love to talk about. So man, when you asked me to speak and gave me some topics, this is, this is the one that just really had my heartbeat. 

Yeah. So, you know, one thing. Yeah, absolutely. Bro. And I, I just want to say also before we really get kicked off here, how much I appreciate you and this podcast. And I've listened to every one of your podcasts and taken away so much your, your guests have been great. The content has been great. So I, I feel very humbled to, to try to participate in that a little bit here today.

But you're doing a great service and thank you for what you're doing. Man, that humbles me that you would listen to the podcast at all. I appreciate you.  Yeah, you're welcome. You know, so when it comes to personal evangelism, it really all centers around the one thing and that's the passion of Jesus.

And  this is what he was passionate about reaching the lost.  And so, you know, for us. We, we are following our master. We're learning the ways of, of our master and learning to, to have the heartbeat of Jesus. And, you know, and that probably the most one of the most famous or quotable quotes when it comes to evangelism is the great commission.

And it's, it's given a few different places in the, in the gospels, but in Matthew 28. In verse 18, he said, and Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given me in heaven and on earth, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And then he said, teaching them to observe all things. That I've commanded you and lo I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.  And  we, as apostolics, what really gets us fired up is the going and baptizing them. And we see personal evangelism a lot about an end goal in mind and the end goal is the new birth and it's beautiful and it ought to be celebrated. 

But personal evangelism is a lot more than just a transaction or a conversion experience. And the people that we're trying to reach but it's,  it's really following the ways of Jesus. And if we don't, we don't take those those bookend parts around that baptism experience, you know, he said, go and make disciples.

And then after they're converted, he said, teaching them to observe all the things that I've commanded you. And so we see teaching and discipling, you know, is happening. Prior to conversion and it's happening after conversion.  And so if we just have evangelism, but we don't have discipleship, then we relegate the great commission to just the great suggestion. 

But Jesus said, disciple them and teach them. And so if we, if we leave those out, then the great commission becomes the great omission for us. We're, we're leaving out some of the greatest. And greatest pieces of the commission itself  is I think, I think we often, we want to separate out evangelism from discipleship and say, okay, first we're going to go in and evangelize, and we're going to, we're going to win souls. 

we're going to do discipleship.  But, but actually the great commission is, is those together. That's the commission personal evangelism is, is about both of those. And, you know, we, we build, I think our idea of church growth is in a lot of, a lot of contexts and not to knock these there's, we will always see some level of success in this, but the idea of church growth is to.

Attract people into the church get them converted and then get them into maybe a growth track of four or eight or 12 lessons. And then as long as they're attending they're, they're paying tithes, they're maybe involved in a small group or they've gone through a discipleship course and they're serving somewhere in the church, you know, then we're like well, we've, we've done it, you know, we've got a convert and so that's  kind of the modern plan of building a church. 

But unfortunately what we do is we build a lot of a church out of a lot of converts, but not out of disciples that are, they're actively experiencing life transformation.  And, you know, I didn't really know this didn't really learn this much while I was ministering as a young minister, but as I became a pastor, it became more evident to me that many people in our churches weren't living transformed lives.

They were, they had a conversion experience, but they didn't have a lot of transformation experience. They just learned how to  know how to behave  in front of people publicly, publicly behave like Christians. Even though back at home or at work or in their private time they struggled and they, they, they sinned and they had difficulties.

And it's really because. They, they were made into converts, but not really into disciples. So when I speak about discipleship, I'm not talking about you know, a 12 week Bible study. Even though those are good and can be part of that, but actually mentoring people to live a transformed life that's led by the Holy Spirit.

That  that's the end goal,  so they're no longer dependent on me as as a mentor or as a pastor or a minister, but they're dependent on the Holy Spirit. And, and, and so when, when they're in trouble they're going to first call on God, not call on Pastor J. Right?  We're really talking about mentoring people from the very beginning stages of, of just their, their curiosity is peaked about Jesus all the way through conversion and even beyond that, teaching them to do what Jesus did. 

So,  There has to be that that understanding of, of what the great commission is, is really all about.  That's awesome. I was going to interject here when you, I got a few points I wanted to add real quick. First of all, Warren, I forgot to warn you, you have been quoted many times on this podcast. Now you say you listen to every episode, so you're aware, but so be careful. 

I guess I've heard of you. Yeah. You know, I've used your. Commission versus, you know, what we do versus why we do it. The commission in the first commandment. So the great commandment. Yeah. So be careful. Just want to warn you there.  Got it. And I liked what you were talking about. People not living a transformed life. 

We have a, if we're, if we're not careful, we can undeliver ourselves by not changing our, our, our mindset and our habits. Someone, someone told me that they. God is the great physician, but we treat him like he's a magician.  You know, we, we, we go to a doctor and they'll give us a regimen, they'll give us a  therapy process of how to heal and how to recover,  but we don't listen to the great physician and follow his medicine and his practice.

We want something right now and we, if we're not careful, we will undeliver ourselves. Ah, that's so true. It's such a good point, Mike. And I think in that, you know, we,  we, we,  Christians aren't intending to offend the Lord, you know, we're not, they're not trying to do that. That's not what we're trying to do.

We're, we're really trying to do our best.  The thing is what we're, what we end up doing is we end up following models that are established for us, patterns of life and patterns of behavior. And so this, the, the, the fault really, it's not like trying to find fault, but we need to find out where things go wrong. 

And so the, you know, this is taught this. It's taught to people. You know, we, when we recognize people are living out of alignment with God, we, we just tell them that's not what Christians do. You need to change your behavior. And so we make it a lot more about behavior modification than we do about life transformation.

So if we, if we help people to truly fall in love with the God who transforms lives.  And, and teach them to get into that, that beautiful secret place of prayer and to, to hear from the Holy Spirit and to, to do what the Holy Spirit says, well, then, then we can actually see him as the physician. Right.

That's good.  That's good. Going back to the need for personal evangelism, the way you were talking about Jesus, it made me realize that  if he wanted to, he could have done a  mass  evangelism model,  you know, a communist model, if you will. If he wanted a government model, he could have, but he chose  personal evangelism all through the Old Testament.

You know, only a couple of times did he feed a prophet with. Birds. Normally, he chose a personal interaction. Normally, it was a widow, or he chose, all throughout the Bible, he chose a person to get personally involved with his miracles. Yes. So, I agree with your burden. I agree, and I'm, I'm enjoying the lesson, the need for personal.

You can't wait for the, the body to do it. You can't wait for the government to do it. Everybody do it. Yes. You gotta get personal because that's, if he wanted it differently, he could have done it differently. But this is what he chose.  Amen. Amen. So keep going, brother. It's it,  yeah, it's a, it's about the foolishness of preaching.

Right. And, and how can, how can they be saved unless they hear, how can they hear unless somebody tells them? How can, you know? So we, we have to, yeah, we have to see this personal side of it, but I, I learned something. In my own life, as a young minister, I desperately wanted to please God, and I wanted to follow the, the will of God.

So my model were, were great men in my life, and, and, and women in my life.  And so I, I tried to follow them the best I could. But one thing that I didn't have, personally,  Was a, a, a little, a little burden, a real, a true passion for lost people.  And a lot of a lot of the way we we interact in church  is performance driven, and that's a, that's a discussion for another time.

But this is how we  measure our success in. In our walk with God is often through a well, we're performing  and in, we can do the same thing in evangelism, where it's, it's not really about the, the lostness of lost people. And it's not really about the, the commission that we are called to follow, but for us, it becomes a, a thing that we must do in order to gain approval.

Whether it's that's approval from God or approval from our leaders.  And so I was kind of living in a space like that as a young minister, I, I did, I did reach the lost. I did. I would debate people in scripture. I would, which was not a great way to win souls, by the way,  we might win an argument, but not right.

So so I would, I would engage in evangelism.  But it was this kind of a skewed model there. But I remember just  realizing that I didn't have a burden for souls. And so I started to beg God, I would pray to God to ask him to help me feel this passion, the burden for souls, because I wasn't feeling it.

And I remember when I was praying that God just revealed to me that the reason I didn't have a burden for souls is because. I didn't truly believe the imperative  of the Great Commission  and the, the condition of lostness  in lost people that they were truly destined for hell without, without a savior. 

And so I didn't, and it's hard. It's hard even now to kind of admit that I didn't believe  the Great Commission. I didn't, it's an imperative. Right.  And so either Jesus truly meant what he said when he called us as Christians into his mission, or he didn't mean it.  Right. We either believe it. Or we don't believe it, right?

So there's really, there's no middle ground here. We have to be absolutely convinced that Jesus, as you said,  gave a way for people to be saved. And he, and his way was that people would reach people. Right. That's his method that we would go, right? And we either believe that or we don't believe it. So I had to, I had to really come to grips with that, the reality, the idea that I would perhaps not be believing, truly believing a tenet of scripture because I would, I would you know, adamantly say.

I believe the word of God. I believe God. I believed in, in the Bible and the scriptures.  But if we truly believe it, truly believe it. We would live it,  right? So I had to come face to face with that reality that there was something there that I knew was true, but I didn't believe it for my, for myself.

And so I had to first embrace the great commission.  And here's the, again, just pointing back again to kind of the reality of this is that I had inadvertently been trained into  dormancy.  And, and we can do this in our churches. We, we can place an unbalanced emphasis on. On the preservation of Christians  over the salvation of the unsaved. 

And we do need to preserve Christians. Right.  But we also need to, to reach the unsaved and  Christians can get trapped in churches, can get trapped into this, this imbalance of overwhelmingly trying to preserve the church.  And neglecting lost people.  So I just been trained. It is just, it's the traditional model of, of the modern church to just attract, convert and grow and wash, rinse and repeat, right.

And our success then is, it seems to be unfortunately more driven by, are we growing our church  than are we reaching the lost?  That's a good point.  So.  Go ahead. Were you going to interject?  I was, if you were at a point, I was going to add a couple of things, but go ahead. I'll, I'll wait.  Yeah. So I was just, I was looking at Mark chapter three and  Jesus in verse number one, it says, Jesus entered the synagogue again,  and a man who is there had a withered hand.

And they watched Jesus closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they could accuse him.  So these people they, they had a, they had a plan here. They, they had a way of life, a way of belief, a way of thinking, just like I did as a young minister. You know, this is how, this is how we minister.

This is how churches grow.  And these people did in this day too, they, they had a way of life. They had a way of doing things. And they wanted to see if Jesus was going to upset their way of doing things. And so in verse three, it says that he said to the man who had a withered hand stand up among all these people. 

And then he said to him to, to the people, he said, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or evil  to save a life  or destroy it?  And they, they remained silent.  So after looking around at them in anger, grieved by the hardness of their hearts,  he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out.

And his hand was restored. And so watch what happens next in verse six. It says, so the Pharisees went out immediately and began plotting with the Herodians as to how they could assassinate him.  And so I see in that passage that that tradition is really nice. Until it gets threatened,  right? So our way of doing things it's, it's really comfortable until it gets threatened. 

And when it gets threatened, then tradition actually becomes an assassin. To the will of God.  And so sometimes we, we become more informed by our tradition and the way we've always done things than we do about the truth and the vision that Jesus had for the great commission. So we have to, we have to come to grips with what we are believing.

And are we truly embracing the great commission?  Or are we clinging more to an, to a broken idea of evangelism? Sure. A tradition.  Yeah.  Outstanding, man. I  I'm digging this, but I just I wanted to go back to your very original point of not having a burden.  Hmm because I think that's more common and I had two reasons because I know I struggled with that when I first started And I want I wanted you to speak to it if you don't mind with one  there is a A tendency and i'm just speaking from my experience things.

I went through  Burden, you know versus a job. It's more of a chore sometimes. Yeah  Because we get so complacent working in the ministry.  It's just something we got to do  Yeah, we we forget the impact of a soul in eternity  And it becomes a chore.  Yeah. Is that realistic? Have you seen that?  Yeah, absolutely.

Brother Mike,  you know where I think this is,  is we separate out our, our walk with God and our responsibilities  from our actual life.  Yeah. And you know, and, and, and so Evangelizing, it shouldn't, it shouldn't be that the idea of evangelism shouldn't be we're going to, you know, the pastor is going to call an outreach on a Saturday and we're all going to come to the church and then we're going to go out into our community and cold contact everybody in a neighborhood, you know, that like we're, we're given an Oikos,  you know, our, our, our community around us, the people in our lives that we interact with every day.

So you know, my, my life is actually surrounded. By unsaved people that just need a friend.  And  so evangelism is really, it's not a job, it's a lifestyle.  It is, but you know, I, I'm just trying, I'm trying to speak to the young minister who may be misplacing his obligations. I'm glad that you mentioned a pastor calls and outreach on Saturday.

Cause I know how that feels. I, I have served at a church.  We did some, we literally had a function every day of the week.  And, and by doing that, it's well intentioned, but by doing that, you lose. The priority things,  and now pastor calls an outreach on Saturday, I no longer do it because I'm burdened. 

I'm there because pastor said be there. And now when I'm knocking on the door, I'm not knocking on the door because I'm trying to reach a soul, I'm knocking on the door because pastor said knock on a, on a door. Right. And, and, and so the the motivation has changed, and we need to be careful that our motivation is still,  A soul and you're right and that comes from a lifestyle and not  just trying to satisfy a pastor or  right  the the other thing I wanted to speak about was another reason that I struggled with  is feeling overwhelmed Like on on the way to church, I see kids playing in the yard and i'm like man They need to be in sunday school. 

Yeah, but I have no idea how to get them there. And so Rather than formulate a plan of action You  I do nothing because I feel overwhelmed. There ain't no way I can get  all these people there.  So what do you say to that?  Yeah. And what a, what a true and real example. I mean, I, I have that same feeling, brother, when I'm sitting in a restaurant, when I'm in the grocery store just the, the reality that, that these people most likely.

I haven't seen him in my church, you know, so most likely they're not born again and they need Jesus. And how possibly can we do this?  And I, I really believe the answer is in uncoupling ourselves from a modern, a false modern church approach to, to evangelism.  And realigning ourselves like repenting and realigning ourselves with, with Jesus model of  evangelism.

You know, it's it's, it's Philip that somehow gets connected probably through John the Baptist. You know, he's, he's, I think he's one of, one of John's disciples and he's introduced to Jesus, sees Jesus be baptized by John. And then, you know, sees him in John saying, there he is. Everybody that's that's the lamb of God.

He's come to take the take away the sins of the world, you know, and so Philip is enamored and he comes and and strikes conversation with Jesus and Jesus starts ministering into his life and then Philip now is changed. And so, then he turns around, and he goes, and he begins to evangelize to his friends. 

Right. And so Jesus, Jesus didn't have the first contact with, um, with Andrew, right. Or Peter, right. This was, this came through another individual.  And so that's, this is the way. So Paul said to Timothy first Timothy Oh, I think it's first Timothy two and two. He said the things that you've heard of me among many witnesses,  the same commit thou unto faithful men who will teach others also. 

Right? So Paul said, it's, it's me, Timothy, and I've given it to you, Timothy, you give it to faithful men and they'll give it to others also. Right. So there's four generations that Paul people that Paul never reached himself are now being reached by others.  And so instead of being overwhelmed by this, the enormity of the task, because it is a big task.

That's the reality. It's true, right?  My city has 58, 000 people in it, you know, and we have our sanctuary seats, 200, you know, so we have to have multiple services just to have a fraction of the people in our city. So it's an enormous task,  but how do we do it? Can we evangelize all of those people? I don't think that's even realistic, but what we can do, what we can do is reach the next hungry soul. 

And God is, he, God is revealing them to us all the time, right? Revealing to us hungry people. And then those people have their own circle of influence, right? And once they become lit on fire, those hot coals, though, they begin to go and ignite flames even beyond us,  right? So  maybe what can do this and make this feel less overwhelming  is by just. 

Understanding this, that there is a strategy in place that can, that can accomplish it.  Right. And the strategy is not the mass marketing. This Jesus, Jesus only, only a few times do we see Jesus talking to multitudes. Right. But then, but it's, it's, it's the one on one personal interactions,  lives being changed that go and change other lives.

So if we just understand that there is a good system that works, Jesus established it. And it's life's changing lives. Well, then I think we, we, it'll feel less overwhelming and feel more accomplished able to be accomplished.  Man, I'm so glad you answered that question, you did a wonderful job.  Thank you.

Keep going.  Yeah. What's your next point?  Yeah. So I, I want to just press one, one more time. And I think this is important for our young ministers. I want to, I want to say about tradition  that tradition is not bad. And so  it's,  Tradition can be very helpful to us and we have that even in our you know, our organization of ministers, we have tradition that's there and these are agreed upon principles that are helpful for us and when we can agree on some things we can, it's easier for us to walk together.

So tradition is not bad inherently. It's only bad when it stifles or prohibits the growth of the kingdom. That's, that's where it becomes bad. Or when it. Directly conflicts with a scriptural tenant, right? And so,  So tradition is, it's kind of an amalgamation of what we believe and how we express it. So we can all have the same beliefs, but we can express it in different ways.

And then we end up having multiple traditions. So one of the ideas of that is that we can all believe in the great commission,  but we can have a different approach to expressing  it. Kind of like we talked about earlier doing some things that that are not necessarily. Aligned with, with kingdom growth,  but so tradition we have to be willing to look at things differently and do things differently than our tradition or preferences have determined for us to do and to be.

So it's not saying, and I would never Advocate for like the postmodern approach of deconstructionism. We don't go in and tear everything down and try to rebuild from scratch. That's, that's not that's not a healthy thing for us to do, but we do need to be able to examine our traditions and the ways that we believe about,  for example, the great commission and personal evangelism.

We have to be able to be able to examine those things and recognize that we're living in an urgent hour  and. And we are gifted with some things that may, we may have to change some of our traditions in order to be effective in  advancing the gospel. And so, and that's okay. That's okay. So in order for the lost  to be found,  we have to change what we believe about the Great Commission.

We have to change what we care about. We have to believe. The great commission so fervently that, that all we care about is what Jesus cared about. And his most expressed mission was that the son of man has come to seek and to save the lost. Right. And so if we can grab ahold of that and just say, this, this is really what everything revolves around this, we, we have to believe this.

We have to, we have to own this when we can do that, then we can say, okay,  I'll. How can we accomplish this thing that is so deeply now seated in our heart?  And sometimes what that means is we have to uninstall  an old operating system that, that is broken and doesn't work, you know, our way of doing things, right.

And then, and then install whatever will take us to the world changing revival that Jesus expects for us.  The world needs the gospel in a greater measure than ever before. And I, and it's always needed the gospel, but it is waxing colder and getting worse and worse. It needs the gospel. It needs us.

It needs every young minister listening to this podcast to be so passionate about the great commission that they will embrace it with all their heart. Amen. Absolutely. So we have to embrace the commission. You  know, what you're talking about tradition, and  that's such a  thoughtless word for it. I don't know, but in our particular organization,  tradition is a sacred cow.

There's a lot of sacred, there's a lot of, you know, boy, we do things because we've always done it that way. That's what tradition is. And you're right. The Bible says, keep the traditions of the church. Yes. So I'm, and coming from me,  When I, when I speak against tradition, I'm at risk of being one of those young punks trying to change things, and I'm not trying to do that,  but  the Pharisees were against tradition,  against changing tradition,  and if we're not careful, we could do the same thing.

Yeah, they're, they were against removing themselves from  being number one, but they were not always wrong.  You know when they were when they were trying to get back closer to the will of god And that's what caused them to be so legalistic in the first place when they got captured by you know Babylon, and they're like, oh we've sinned we need to get back to the word that was right And they eventually straight the tradition eventually straight away.

Well, maybe that's where we're at now and you're right We need to be able to evaluate and realign and if we're not careful we can be modern pharisees and say nope We're not I ain't changed.  Oh, that's so true. You know, I made a statement before and I feel this with all my heart. I don't mind being wrong.

I just don't want to stay wrong. Exactly. Right. I want to be doing the right thing. It was JT Pugh that said he said, methods are many. Principles are few.  Right. Methods may change. Principles never do.  So as long as we are staying true to the principles, then we can always feel feel comfortable examining our methods, right?

That's okay. It's okay for us to do that. And I know that there, there's a fear that, that we would,  and I, I don't, I don't want to discard anything quickly. If somebody built a fence, there's a reason they built a fence. We need to discover the reason for it before we even think about taking the fence away.

Right? So I, I think we, we need to be very careful when, when we do that. But if our goal is, is to align more closely with scripture, then I think we've got the right, at least the right motive.  Exactly. I agree with you. Good job. I'm enjoying it. What else you got?  Yeah, so I think the next thing, once we've embraced the commission and I believe again, like I was saying, as a young minister, I truly believe I truly loved the great commission.

I just didn't understand it. In its proper context and didn't really believe it in the way that it needed to be believed and expressed.  And so,  so I believe that the ministers even that are that are listening right now, but they, they, they love the great commission  and probably the question that they have is how, how can they.

Engage this properly.  And so  I believe that that all starts with personal personally being a transformed disciple.  So we cannot change our world if we're not changed people,  right? So Jesus said, is it, it's just really interesting. You know, he said, I am the light of the world.  And that's the,  it's a true statement, obviously a true statement, but then a later later, he said, you are the light of the world, right? 

Right? So how can, how can I be the light of the world? Jesus is the light of the world. You know, and I know myself and I'm a pretty fallible person. So how can I be the light of the world? And the, the way, you know, we, Paul said, we can even understand the mystery, the, the, the, the eternal Godhead by looking at the things that he created.

Right? So if we look at the sun and the sun is the light of our world, right? But in creation in Genesis one, it says that he created a, a great light to rule the day and a lesser light to rule the night.  And I was thinking about that lesser light, that the moon, the moon has no power in itself has no,  Source of light in itself.

It has, there's nothing about the moon that can light up anything, right? But because the moon reflects the sun, the greater light, it can actually be light to the world at night. That's good. And so, so that's our role is that we need to be so affected by, by the transformational power of God that, that it changes us. 

And then we become the light to our world,  but without a personal transformation, without me personally being a disciple, there's no way. That I can bring that change and that light to the people around me.  So I have to start there. I have to be the disciple. I have to be so committed to this that I will let Jesus change what I care about.

That I will put my, my personal preferences, my pursuits, all those things, I'll put those aside. For the sake of, of being like Jesus, being a disciple, an imitator of Christ.  And if I can do that, right, if I can be, if I can be fully committed to being a, the disciple of Jesus, well, then I can point back to somebody else and I can say, come and come and  see what I've seen, right?

Come see a man who changed my life. Right. Come and meet the Messiah. You know, I've found, I've found the Messiah. So I need my own personal story first.  Man. Now don't share all your good nuggets here. Tell me some privately so I can still preach it. If you put it out here on the podcast, you know, I have a hard time preaching it because people are listening and that's good stuff.

All right, keep going. I got nothing to add to that. Yeah. All right. So, so once we have experienced this, this personal transformation and we become the disciple, then we now have something to take into our world. Right? So when I get the, the imagery of, of like a sponge and, a sponge is a, does a great job soaking things up and we can, as a, as a Christian, we can,  we can get a little wet, you know, we can, we can soak some things up from Jesus.

We can even, even you take a sponge and you halfway commit it into a bucket of water and it will get halfway wet. Right. And. So we can always absorb some things, but you take a sponge who's not who's not fully saturated and you, you take that sponge and it'll, it'll do a little work and it can be a little effective, but man, you plunge that thing under the water source and it's fully saturated and you pull that thing out of the water.

It is just splashing water everywhere. Right. And so that's the kind of disciple. That we need to be, we need to be so moved by the power of the Holy Ghost. So transformed, so affected that we just get kind of, kind of sloppy, you know, everything we touch gets wet. Yeah, that's right.  Man, I like that analogy.

I once heard a preacher try to use the same story, but he used a plunger and I like the sponge a whole lot better.  Yeah, let's, let's use the sponge. Oh, that's great.  Keep going.  Yeah. So, and Mike, the only way we can really have this kind of walk with God, this fully committed, totally saturated life is to cultivate a deep relationship with Jesus.

Through discipleship,  there's a, there's an incredible book. It's called the power of a praying husband.  And I don't know if you've ever read that. My, my wife first got one, it's called the power of a praying wife. Right.  And, and you would think that the book would be, you know, for the husband would be all about how can I pray for my wife to be whatever, you know, to be a better wife and whatnot.

But most of the prayers in that  book are about the husband is about me,  right? And so I, in order for. For my wife to be a blessed wife, she needs a blessed husband, right? So I, so I need to pray for myself. I need a relationship with Jesus that will affect her. And so that it, then now she has a better life because her husband is a godly man.

And it's the same thing with us evangelizing  other people.  The world deserves a us that the, let me, let me put it this way. The best gift we can give to the world around us is a transformed us.  Right.  Right. So it starts here. And so when we're talking about personal evangelism, we would think that what we want to be talking about our methods to go out and reach the lost.

And certainly, you know, we can do that. And that's important.  If we if we will first pursue a deep abiding relationship with Jesus.  Then the byproduct of that can be effective personal evangelism. And so a lot of what we're trying to do here that the backward way we do this is to try to convince people.

untransformed people to go and do this, this powerful evangelistic  effort. Right.  But Jesus said in John 15, he said, I'm the vine and you're just a branch. It's like, you're not a vine. You're just a branch, right? Cut you off and you're dead. Like apart from me, You can do nothing.  And so we can't, we can't go apart away from Jesus  apart from him and expect to bear much fruit. 

But he said, if we abide in him and he abides in us, then we will bear much fruit. Okay, so it has to come out of an abiding relationship with Jesus. So that's the first place that we need to start. Once we have, once we have truly had a transformational experience. And we, we become transformed people, then we can go out in the, in the power of the Holy spirit. 

Right. And then we can be an effective  force and a witness to the world around us.  So that's where it starts  with our transformation.  And it will be almost natural if we, if we get enough of Jesus, It'll be almost natural. We don't have to  come up with a plan, a strategy.  Yes.  It'll be natural.  Yeah, 2 Corinthians 2 Corinthians 10, Paul said that the Corinthian church they, they kind of ridiculed him and said, Oh, his letters are heavy and they're powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech is contemptible. 

You know, they were, they were saying, you know, this is a, this is kind of a, a, a weak looking guy, an old, probably feeble man doesn't speak very well,  but he was, he, he was so transformed by the power of the Holy ghost that he, he saturated the world  everywhere he went. Right. And so it started with his relationship with Jesus.

And Paul even said about himself, he said, my speech, my preaching it wasn't with enticing words of man's wisdom, but it was in, in demonstration of the, of the spirit and power,  right? So, and he said that the whole purpose of that is so that their faith wouldn't stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

So we, we can't rely on ourselves. It's truly seeking Jesus first. Being in his presence, learning to live a transformed life, being submitted to the Holy Spirit, learning how to follow the Holy Spirit. And as we're being led by the Holy Spirit, now  we can be sensitive to the needs of the world around us and effectively minister to him. 

Wonderful. Wonderful. Jay, I know it's, I know your schedule, I booked you for an hour and it's almost there.  I knew, I knew going into this, we were going to do it in at least two parts. Yeah. So we haven't got to your OICAS yet. You referenced it earlier, but we haven't gotten there yet.  So let's take a break here.

Well, let's reschedule. Do you mind coming back and finishing the topic? Oh man. I would love to be with you anytime, bro.  Okay. Cause I know you're busy and I know you've got somewhere else to go at the hour. And I don't, I don't want you to rush to that. So I'm going to go ahead and let I want everyone to know that he's got a website, jjones.

faith. He's got a lot of, he's got blogs, he's got newsletters, he's got a lot of resources that I didn't know he had. I'm going to ask him about later, ministry review system, calendar,  yeah, I need to check in on that. I warn you, he's an Apple guy, I don't know if this stuff works on Android, does it? 

It should work everywhere.  All right, yeah, so anyway, he is an Apple guy, I, I still love him.  Be careful. Don't hold it against me. Yeah.  Apple style, like they say. Okay. Apostolic. You have done phenomenal, Jay. I have enjoyed it.  I can't wait to finish it because we've, we've got more notes and this was a requested topic.

I have one of my listeners wanted to hear about it and you have to, I just can't wait to finish it, but it'll be, it'll probably be at least a month because I know you're best every time I've booked with, with you, it's been a month out at least. So it'll be a minute. Look, dear listener be patient.  Jay.

Love you. Appreciate you, brother.  I love you too, my friend. Thank you so much for the opportunity.